Magnetometer Updates

Chesapeake Times, Vol 12 | Jan 2023

In SonarWiz 7.10.02, we are releasing a large update to the SonarWiz Magnetometer module. The goal of the update is to better integrate the magnetometer module with the rest of the program and to add missing utility functions that were previously only available for sonar files.

The largest change to the user interface is the addition of Magnetometer Drawing Modes. Drawing modes in SonarWiz are found on the View Menu and they give the user control over how a dataset is displayed in the Map Window. Previously, the user had limited control over the display of magnetometer data, with the new drawing modes, you will be able to select to draw the magnetometer line as colored dots representing either the raw or residual gamma values, or you can show a simple navigation plot. The user has complete control over the size and color palette of the gamma display and can change the color mapping on the fly. This is very similar to how users can work with Sonar data display and should be familiar to most SonarWiz users.

Figure 1: Magnetometer raw and residual gamma values can be displayed in the map view using the new magnetometer drawing modes.

We have improved the editing experience for magnetic processors, both at the track-line level and in the magnetic editor. For example, this magnetometer dataset was collected by an AUV in a single, continuous line, including turns. We can use the new Split utility to clip the dataset to the boundary of our area of interest and turn off or remove the lines we are not interested in.

Figure 2: Splitting a trackline using a Feature polygon quickly splits out the turns from a dataset.
Figure 3: Magnetometer lines after splitting by polygon and turning off lines outside the area of interest.

In the magnetic file editor, we have made it much easier to clean up noisy data. You can remove spikes with the sweep of the mouse or use the new Clip and Remove commands to eliminate data outside acceptable limits.

Figure 4: A few outlier samples need to be removed before the actual magnetic data can be analyzed.
Figure 5: After removing the spurious data points, the remaining data set is easier to work worth. 

When you have both sonar data and magnetometer data loaded into SonarWiz, you can use the two datasets synergistically. For example, Figure 6 shows a sidescan waterfall display with both sidescan contacts and magnetic anomalies overlaid. You can have SonarWiz automatically associate the Anomalies with the nearest known Contact and make text entries in both the Anomaly and Contact databases establishing a connection between the two targets.

Figure 6: Contacts and Magnetic Anomalies overlay a sidescan waterfall display in SonarWiz.

Finally, we’ve gone through the context menus for magnetometer files and anomalies and added many of the nice utility functions that you have come to appreciate for sonar files and Contacts. Commands such as Zoom To (target), Hide, Isolate, Sort, Properties and more. These commands look and behave the same way that they do for Sonar files so that learning to use the Magnetometer module is easy.

We are excited to roll these changes out to our customers. Almost all of the features we have implemented in this release were suggested by existing magnetometer power users and we have already started collecting suggestions for the next magnetometer update. All of these updates will be available in SonarWiz 7.10.02.