Author Topic: Humminbird 997 as a survey tool  (Read 6343 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Lca05003

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Joined: Jun 2013
  • Posts: 2
Humminbird 997 as a survey tool
« on: June 27, 2013, 03:26:26 PM »
I'm a civl engineer, and one of our clients (a powerplant) has asked us to survey the intake channel into the powerplant.  The channel is about 11 feet deep, 200 feet wide, and 1200 feet long.  It is clear of debris and has a fairly hard bottom. The survey does not have to be very accurate, it is just to see if they need to dredge, and if so, how much volume of material they will need to displace. I could pay the money and rent underwater surveying equipment, but that seams a little overkill for this application. 

I have a friend who has a Humminbird 997 with side imaging.  I do not know very much about side imaging or depth finders in general, but my plan is to have him drive his boat slowly down the intake channel while recording on an sd card, and then take that data and using SonarTRX Plus Pack, export the data to a .csv excel file, which I can bring into my AutoCAD program and create a surface, cut cross sections etc.

My questions for y'all are:
1) Does this seem like a feasible solution?
2) Will the exported data have an XY coordinate with a depth relative to the water surface?
3) How many points will the side imaging unit shoot along each cross section?
4) Does anyone have any experience with the SonarTRX 3rd party program?
5) Is there a better way for me to do this?

My thoughts are, if it doesn't work, we will just go ahead and rent the underwater survey equipment, but I'd like to try this method first.  We will be able to cross check the accuracy of the depth finder with our GPS surveying equiment.  Any help would be appreciated.


Offline matt@reefmaster

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Joined: Mar 2010
  • Location: Sydney
  • Posts: 127
  • Unit(s): 997
  • Software: 4.75
Re: Humminbird 997 as a survey tool
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2013, 07:33:06 AM »
Hi,

No one else has jumped in, so I'll go for the shameless plug :)

It's certainly possible to survey in the "rough and ready" way that you describe, using your 997 and some relatively cheap software. No one would claim that the results would be suitable for navigation, survey requirements etc, but you'll certainly get a decent representation of the bottom of the channel, which sounds like it might be all that is required in your situation.

I haven't used SonarTRX directly, but have used files generated by it. SonarTRX does a great job of mosaicing side-scan imagery to give you a "picture" of the sea bed. SonarTRX does not create a 3D model. but it will export depth data along the track that you generated. Conceivably you could import this directly into a CAD package, just be aware that (as far as I know) the depth data will be in GPS coordinates, so you'll need to consider that when creating your model.

For a very simple solution, one possibility is that you use a combination of  our software and SonarTRX. ReefMaster can generate the 3D and contour models based on the depth log, and SonarTRX can generate the sidescan mosaics.

In the next release of RM (due later this week), you would be able to import SonarTRX imagery directly into RM and overlay in 2D and 3D, combine with depth colours and contours etc, as shown in the image below.

ila_rendered

Matt
ReefMaster - Waypoint Management and Underwater Mapping Software for Fishermen

Offline Lca05003

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Joined: Jun 2013
  • Posts: 2
Re: Humminbird 997 as a survey tool
« Reply #2 on: July 03, 2013, 03:56:58 PM »
Thanks for the reply!

I will look into the reefmaster program, but what I really need is an excel spreadsheet with points. As long as the depth is relative I should be ok.  I plan on shooting the water surface elevation with our survey equipment, and I can adjust the other points accordingly.  The reason I'd rather generate contours with my CAD software is so I can come back and calculate dredge volumes.

I will be going out this sunday to do the survey and will let ya'll know how it turns out. 

Offline abraquelebout

  • volunteer rescue diver, surfer, publicist, submarine archaeology
  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Joined: Apr 2010
  • Location: france
  • Posts: 270
  • Unit(s): 898, 1198, helix G2
  • Software: deep,,drdepht,reef.
  • Accessories: towfish lowbird /LSS2-hdsi, 60mcable
Re: Humminbird 997 as a survey tool
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2013, 03:53:03 AM »
hi
i use humminbird side scan sonar for submarine archaeology (with dr depht), whe make bathymetric model a few time, not volumetric , look at "sonar 2000" do in this forum
if you want, you can take humviewer (free software) export data depht an position  in .csv (excel) and draw into cao software
i use sometime surfer,
it make good map
sonar trx seem's a good soft, i think looking it .


Offline matt@reefmaster

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Joined: Mar 2010
  • Location: Sydney
  • Posts: 127
  • Unit(s): 997
  • Software: 4.75
Re: Humminbird 997 as a survey tool
« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2013, 03:38:12 PM »
Yep - that will probably work fine for your needs. The only thing to watch out for is that the raw GPS co-ords describe an angular position on the earth's surface, so if you plot them directly your x/y scale is going to be out (assuming you are not on the equator). For the small area/rough and ready calculations that you are after, you could just load the lat/lon positions in excel and run a formula over each column to convert to something like mercator metres (formula easily available on the web).
matt
ReefMaster - Waypoint Management and Underwater Mapping Software for Fishermen

Offline abraquelebout

  • volunteer rescue diver, surfer, publicist, submarine archaeology
  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Joined: Apr 2010
  • Location: france
  • Posts: 270
  • Unit(s): 898, 1198, helix G2
  • Software: deep,,drdepht,reef.
  • Accessories: towfish lowbird /LSS2-hdsi, 60mcable
Re: Humminbird 997 as a survey tool
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2013, 03:44:57 AM »
hi matt
yes i convert gps position in métric by a soft (in france Circé), after for surfer i make in negative all depht, the result is good
for sounding i use tm260 a 6° ducer @ 200 khz, nice résult.
i wonder one thing : as reefmaster export chart in OziExplorer format like a jpeg and coordonate .Map like drdepht do ?
or only in .Kml (g earth)format.



Offline matt@reefmaster

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Joined: Mar 2010
  • Location: Sydney
  • Posts: 127
  • Unit(s): 997
  • Software: 4.75
Re: Humminbird 997 as a survey tool
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2013, 04:07:53 AM »
Hi,
We don't support OziExplorer at the moment, but we do export calibrated map images as Google Earth KML files, with associated png files (to retain transparency in unmapped areas).

Matt
ReefMaster - Waypoint Management and Underwater Mapping Software for Fishermen


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo

 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
0 Replies
9405 Views
Last post March 31, 2009, 07:13:09 AM
by RGecy
0 Replies
8242 Views
Last post May 03, 2010, 02:21:19 AM
by RGecy
4 Replies
15007 Views
Last post July 14, 2011, 04:30:42 PM
by Humminbird_Greg
6 Replies
16799 Views
Last post January 20, 2012, 06:49:21 PM
by iliveinakeg
0 Replies
3394 Views
Last post January 17, 2012, 09:04:05 AM
by bigkahuna
7 Replies
4887 Views
Last post February 03, 2014, 07:23:54 PM
by LittleGazoo
4 Replies
5558 Views
Last post August 20, 2016, 04:34:10 PM
by Rickard
3 Replies
4126 Views
Last post August 04, 2017, 03:05:57 AM
by abraquelebout


anything
SimplePortal 2.3.3 © 2008-2010, SimplePortal