| In the latest version of SonarWiz, processing bathymetry just got a little easier. (In my opinion, of course). Editing data is relatively straightforward, finding those soundings that are “flyers” or “anomalies”, which as hydrographers, we determined are invalid and need to be removed. But sometimes we miss finding the sounding and it remains in the dataset, requiring us to go back into the editor for further editing. It could be just one or two points from hundreds of thousands of good ones. SonarWiz 7.8.0 has a new editing tool to work directly on the bathy data in the main display – without the need to go into the swath or grid editor. When sonar data is imported, all sounding points are drawn. Shown as an overview, the data has the filled in appearance; zooming in, you can see each sounding point displayed as a unique point.  The typical route for data processing would be to use the Swath editor or Area editor, to display the line (or lines) for removing invalid data points. The program has different filters and displays, and folks tend to find one they like and use it. But here is frustrating part. After spending time on cleaning the data and then show it back in the main display, we notice data points that have been missed for removal. We then need to start the process again, opening the editor to find the few points missed. Large outliers are easy to detect, but in the example below, these data points were missed in the editor.  Swath Editor, cleaning invalid data points. Sounding shown around the barge areremoved in the plan, cross section view and 3D view After editing, notice the few sounds missed on the south side of the barge. In the swath editor, these points were missed.  In the latest release, we added a tool that will edit the data, without the need to go back into the editor. In the Bathymetry tab, a new icon “Plan View Editor” will allow you to reject or accept soundings. And even added the auto merge, updating the data set to reflect the changes made.  I like to use the polygon feature, which allows me to get to the exact areas with the bad soundings. The rectangle works just as well.   After editing, the few soundings at the south end of the barge that were missed earlier, have been removed. This new editor is the perfect tool to help with the editing of bathymetry data. The ability of importing data, enabling to display individual files, and showing all soundings has been in SonarWiz for a while. Last year, we updated the drawing to take advantage of the Octree method for working with larger data sets. And now, in this latest release, the ability to edit data right in the main display will speed things up for getting to a final product. This tool is just one more way to allow our users to work with multibeam, single beam and Lidar data. -Harold Orlinsky, General Manager |