SonarTRX Products

Product Name

Current release: 21.1

Product description and supported sonars / file types

Show comparison of product features (Feature Matrix)

SonarTRX Pro (x64/x86)

SonarTRX Pro (x64 and x86 editions) has the ability to import sonar files from several sonar manufacturers and generate geo-referenced images from the sidescan data. It can extract depth-along-track as estimated by the sonar, at various time-intervals (1, 2, 5, ...) from the default sonar channel, for bathymetric processing. It can also calculate the "first echo return" based on the recorded sonar data, and allows for digitizing the seabed manually to define the depth used for slant range correction, should that be necessary.

SonarTRX Pro (x64) requires a 64 bit Windows operating system, which compared to a 32 bit system is capable of better utilizing available physical memory. This allows for loading larger sonar recordings and creation of larger MasterImages. The 32 bit version of SonarTRX Pro is also available on request, and the license allows for running any of these two versions. (Customers can contact support@SonarTRX.com to obtain a download link for the 32 bit version after the purchase has been made.)

Supported sonar file types: See the Feature Matrix document

SonarTRX-PlusPack v2A

PlusPack v2A is an add-on product license that activates additional depth-export, track-line correction and export functionality within SonarTRX v20 and newer:

• Import/Export of alternate data (corrected trackline, absolute elevations, transducer altitude...)
• Export of a more detailed along-track depth-profile (XYZ data) for bathymetric processing of data from specific channel. The exported depth can be values estimated by the sonar itself, or values as calculated/digitized via SonarTRX. The exported data also includes time-stamps and water temperature, if available in sonar recording.
• When used with SonarTRX v21, PlusPack v2A also enables option to Batch-export depth-along-track from multiple recordings. Depths are as estimated by sonar, from default sonar channel, and the export-interval is limited to a point every 2 seconds.

Please see the tutorials page for various PlusPack usage scenarios.

Common functionality (all versions)

Data Import

The various SonarTRX file importers (for each type of sonar file) have several common features:

• Import the entire file, or a time-segment of data
• Import data from select sonar channels
• Correction of sonar data during import.

View and edit data

SonarTRX has a built-in viewer / editor:

The cursor status information is shown below the view. Differential values are shown in brackets when carrying out a click & drag operation. The birds-eye map in the lower-left corner provides information about the location of cursor (small circle), targets (cross), selected target (circled cross) and active tile with respect to the trackline of the sonar recording (red line or circle). The location of the "page" (group of image tiles) currently loaded in the viewer is shown as the gray portion of the trackline. The above sample recording was obtained from available online xtf-samples. The sonar type was not specified.

The following is a summary of the sonar viewer / editor functionality that is common to all versions of SonarTRX:

General

• Selection of sonar channel and use preferred color scheme
• Use desired range and zoom level
• Choose among various inline scales or show speed-corrected images

Navigate within available data

• Paging mechanism to handle large files
• Display sonar coverage and navigation information for each image-tile
• Birds eye view that shows the navigation track of the sonar recording, the cursor location and position of the active tile etc.

Correction of data

• Tools to correct and manipulate data
• Recalculate slant-range corrected images

Change view preferences

• Adjust gain and contrast and save preferences
• Display grid lines
• Highlight bottom pixels

Measure, inspect and define targets and clips

• Cursor information that shows time, altitude, range, horizontal range etc.
• Create clips and define their start and end times.
• Capture Target locations and optionally paste to Google Earth as KML placemarks
• Measurement tool - click and drag cursor to show differential values
• Tool to estimate the height of a bottom feature by measuring the size of the shadow

Creating images

Having imported data and made any corrections using the viewer, SonarTRX can generate geo-referenced images for viewing with Google Earth or import to 3'rd party GIS applications. The SonarTRX Mosaic creation dialog has a large number of options to customize the output:

• Generate images from a one or more named clips (time-intervals)
• Merge image-tiles into a larger Master Image
• Use auto-correction tool for gain and contrast, or use data as corrected during import.
• Crop the data at a certain range for improved control over the assembly of images from the survey area.
• Relocated to adjust for a constant layback and cross-track offset
• Correct images for constant heading-deviations between the transducer/towfish and the CMG of the tow-vessel.
• ...and more.

The following is a sample from a shallow water survey of a pipeline crossing: