Chesapeake Times, Vol 10 | July 2022
“Nearly headless? How can you be nearly headless?” Although I do not believe Hermione Granger ever had a need to use SonarWiz, we here at CTI have been asking the same question. As our ever-evolving industry (like most others) require increasingly more automation and headless solutions, we have begun to implement more and more automatic options for the SonarWiz workflow but similarly to Sir Nicholas, they are still nearly headless. The problem we needed to solve was how to take the user interaction out of the following steps in the workflow: Recording Data – Import – Bottom Tracking – Gains – Export
Our first stage in this endeavor started with options to copy processing from one file or project to another which I am sure most of our users are familiar with, tools like the Copy Processing Results and Make Others Like This. One of our customers then requested we take it one step further: I have tested and verified parameters for bottom tracking, gains, and geotiffs for this survey, I want these applied to any files I import into the project.
Once configured and enabled, a user can get a geotiff for each one of their files that are bottom tracked, slant range corrected, and signal processed by simply importing the data.
Our next step was to take out button clicks in the former side of the workflow – acquisition. With most of the equipment on the market users have the option to acquire data in the recording software of their hardware or in of our supported real time servers, we wanted to add an option for both.
If you have data steaming into SonarWiz you can take out a large amount of the need for user interaction by setting up your survey area of interest beforehand. If you can either import a shapefile or create a feature area where you need data recorded, the Auto Record function will automatically start/stop recording when your cross the extents of the feature.
If you do not have a real time able license you can still utilize some of the automated functions. As your sonar’s recording software drops raw files onto your PC, users have the option to put SonarWiz into a “listen mode” where it monitors a specific folder and any data it sees, it imports and processes. This tool is located under the Import drop-down menu and can be configured by selecting Auto Import. With these tools available and a bit of preparation, a surveyor can simply turn their sonar on and minimize SonarWiz and by the time they are finished they can have a trimmed and signal processed geotiff of the exact area of interest.
Let our support team know if there are any other tools you would like to see implanted into the program that can make your day to day in SonarWiz easier, we are happy to hear your suggestions.