| Chesapeake Times, Vol 4 | January 2021 ZEdit is Chesapeake’s utility program for editing series data in CSF, CMF (magnetometer) and XTF files. A common operation there is smoothing and removing anomalies from one-dimensional data, via its bottom “graph” view. We’ve added a few features in recent versions that are aimed at helping out with some of these series-editing tasks; these are highlighted below. First, CSF sound velocity is now an editable field. Many of the file types SonarWiz can import allow for a per-ping sound velocity, but the ability to edit those values after import wasn’t present except for the case of setting the whole file to a given value. For files having a per-ping sound velocity, but some spikes or roughness in them that need to be cleaned up, ZEdit now allows for edits to be made, correcting a few erroneous records without changing the whole file. |
 |
| Second, the smoothing filter can now be applied based on a user-specified time in seconds rather than a record count. For files with areas of differing ping rate, this allows for application of a same-sized filter throughout the file. Maximum window width is entered in seconds, and ZEdit builds and uses a filter window with half of that time on each side of each record, narrowing the window as necessary at the file ends so as to maintain symmetry around the target ping. Lastly, the ZEdit filtering function can be applied to many CSFs in a batch operation. With a CSF file open, you can open the filter window, adjust settings, and test with the “Apply” button until a good set of filter settings are found. After that, clicking the “Apply to CSFs…” button will allow you to select a batch of CSFs to apply the filter to. When the process is completed, SonarWiz will automatically launch any processing operations against the edited files. |
 |
| Altogether, these are relatively minor, though useful changes. The last of them, though, offers a number of possibilities for future improvements to save time on many common tasks. – Jonathan Fleetwood, Engineer |