SI interpretation is sometimes difficult for new users...this is basically because the visual perspective of the SI image is different from any sonar display we've ever seen before...
The difficulty in SI display interpretation lies in the fact that the SI display image is a 2 dimensional aspect image of a 3 dimensional underwater world...
Sonar displays are incapable of rendering a true 3 dimensional image.... (well I guess just about any display in incapable of rendering a "true" 3 dimensional image)...
So,.... the SI techno-developers decided to "bend the rules of 2 dimensional displays" and take 1 of the 3 dimensions of the physical underwater world and display it in the same "visual" plane in the SI image as the other 2 dimensions in the sonar display....
There are
"3" dimension planes in the actual physical underwater world:
- 1. "Horizontal width"- (rendered into the SI image by the SI Range width that shows as "left and right" on the SI image)...
- 2. "Horizontal length"- (rendered into the SI image by the sonar history that shows as "top to bottom" of the SI image)...
- 3. "Vertical depth"- (rendered into the SI image by taking the actual vertical plane of the "water column" and laying it flat down in the same 2 dimensional plane on the sonar display as the 2 horizontal planes mentioned above...
What I have tried to do with this 3d rendering program is show how the SI unit processor takes the actual vertical "water column" in the underwater world .... and morphs that actual vertical plane data into a 2 dimensional sonar display...
It is my goal to shorten the
"learning curve" of SI interpretation for new users that are having difficulty understanding the "3 dimensional underwater world" as seen on the "2 dimensional sonar display's SI image"...
As you watch this video... Keep your eyes trained on the sunken barge in the right SI beam as the "water column" morphs from the 2 dimensional sonar display image to the actual vertical plane of "water depth" in a 3 dimensional visual aspect ....and then the morphs back into the 2 dimensional SI image...
Rickie