abiview reads in an ABI sequencer trace file and graphically displays the data. The probabilities of each of the 4 nucleotide bases along the sequencing run is plotted and the assigned nucleotide (G, A, T, C or N) from the ABI file is overlayed on the graphs. The complete sequence is written to an output file.
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The horizontal scale of the output image labelled 'Residue Position' is only a very approximate indication of the spacing of residues in the image. The real residue spacing is variable, as it relies on the speed with which the oligo-nucleotides are eluted in the ABI sequencer. Do not be surprised to see the nucleotide signals spaced at a much greater distance than the horizontal scale might suggest.
An ABI file (*.abi) contains sequence trace data and base calls from a run of an ABI nucleotide sequencer machine. A trace data file is what you get back from having some DNA sequenced, for example, by a 3730XL sequencer. The files are in "binary" format and so cannot be viewed directly on screen. To inspect the sequencing data you must use a trace viewer such as abiview. Another good trace viewer is FinchTV (http://www.geospiza.com/finchtv/). It is stand-alone program and is freely available.