A Streamlined Approach to Target Management
Chesapeake Times Vol 22 | July 2025
In SonarWiz, Rationalized Contacts represent an evolution in contact management designed to improve consistency, reduce redundancy, and enhance interoperability across survey lines and sonar systems. Traditionally, sonar contacts—such as targets identified in sidescan or sub-bottom data—could be created independently in different lines, sometimes
resulting in duplicate or fragmented records for the same real-world object. Rationalized Contacts solve this by grouping related contact instances under a single, unified entry. This approach ensures that a contact identified across multiple adjacent lines, for example, is treated as a single target, simplifying reporting, editing, and review. Rationalized Contacts maintain references to the original sonar line data but abstract the contact into a higher-level object, making it easier to manage and analyze over the course of a survey.
In traditional workflows, analysts manually reviewed each line’s contacts to determine which ones were duplicates or overlapping targets. This was not only time-consuming but also prone to human error. Rationalized Contacts reduce this burden significantly:
● Consistency: Ensures that the same target isn’t logged multiple times as distinct entries.
● Traceability: Maintains a link to all the original line-level contacts, allowing backtracking and re-validation.
● Simplified Review: Rationalized Contacts appear as singular entries in the Contact Manager, making it easier to filter, sort, and annotate target findings.
Rationalized Contacts are particularly useful in high-density surveys, such as wreck searches, UXO detection, or cable route inspections, where overlapping sonar swaths are common.
For the latest SonarWiz 8.4 release, the Rationalized Contacts Tool has been completely revamped:
The image above shows the new layout of the Rationalize Contacts Tool. This includes:
● The Contact Name where you can set the prefix used by this rationalized contact. The contact number will follow the same naming conventions found in the Contact Options Menu.
● The Contact Image where you can select the best image to use for the Rationalized Contact by using the Select Image drop down. You may pick from any of the underlying (selected) contacts.
● The Rationalized Contact Position, where you have four options for specifying the contact position:
○ Manual Entry – Type the coordinates directly into the input fields. You can enter the position in either Geographic Coordinates (Latitude/Longitude) or Grid Coordinates (X/Y) depending on the selected radio button.
○ Average – Click the Average button to use the mean position of all underlying contacts
○ Pick from Map – Use the Pick button to select a location interactively in the map window
○ Use Selected – Click the Selected button to apply the position of the currently selected contact (from the Select Image dropdown)
● The Contact Dimensions where for each measurement – Length, Width, Height and Scour – you can choose how the value is derived from the underlying contacts. This could be either the Average which uses the mean value across all underlying contacts, or Maximum which uses the highest value recorded amoung the underlying contacts.
The revamped Rationalize Contacts Tool also has several benefits for enhancing workflows:
1. Streamlined Target Review
With Rationalized Contacts, reviewing survey targets becomes significantly more efficient. Rather than reviewing each contact per sonar line, users can assess a single Rationalized Contact, which aggregates all related observations. This speeds up QA/QC processes and reduces duplication in reporting.
2. Improved Reporting
The Contact Export and Contact Report Generator tools in SonarWiz can now reference Rationalized Contacts directly. This ensures that exported reports are cleaner, with fewer duplicate entries, and provides richer context by including all associated child contacts.
3. Better Integration with Automatic Target Recognition (ATR)
Rationalized Contacts complement ATR workflows by helping merge overlapping detections. As ATR tools identify similar objects across survey lines, rationalization consolidates these findings into a single actionable item, reducing false positives and enhancing operator trust in automated results.
4. Enhanced GIS and Map Views
When displayed in map views, Rationalized Contacts help declutter the visualization, showing one symbol per target rather than a cluster of overlapping contacts. This is especially valuable during mission planning or when presenting data to stakeholders.
5. Improved Export and Interoperability
Export formats such as shapefiles and contact databases benefit from rationalized output. Rationalized Contacts ensure external systems receive non-redundant, well-organized information, improving compatibility with GIS platforms, naval command software, or customer deliverables.
Rationalized Contacts in SonarWiz represent a significant advancement in contact management, particularly for complex sonar surveys where efficiency and accuracy are critical. By consolidating duplicate or overlapping contacts into a single, unified record, SonarWiz enables faster review, cleaner reporting, and better data integration across tools and exports. Whether you’re working with side scan, sub-bottom, or using Automatic Target Recognition, Rationalized Contacts reduce clutter and streamline your workflow, ensuring that every identified target is accounted for clearly and consistently. As survey demands grow in scale and complexity, rationalization offers a smarter way to manage what matters most — your targets.
-Alex Nowak