Quick Start Guide to Contact/Target Picking

This guide will show you how to capture contacts in SonarWiz

This Quick Start Guide will step you through creating contacts in your sidescan projects. Contacts are special markers that are associated with a particular sonar file. They consist of 2 parts:

  1. A database entry that records the exact sonar file and sample on which the contact was picked as well as measurement and classification information that the user adds to the contact.

  2. An image of the contact clipped from the sonar waterfall.

SonarWiz is designed to handle thousands of contacts in a project and provides a deep set of tools for working with and exporting contact information.

Before picking contacts, you should have completed

By following this procedure, you will learn how to:

  • Capture contacts in Sidescan, Sub-Bottom and Bathymetry data

  • Measure and classify contacts

  • Create Contact Reports

Download Demonstration Data
You can download a copy of the data set used here and follow along on your own computer.
Dataset to Download


Instructions

  1. Open a SonarWiz project with Sidescan, Bathymetry or Sub-Bottom files.

  2. Click the green Options icon and select the Contact Options panel from the side menu.


    In the Contact Options, you control how contacts will be named. It is also useful to review the Miscellaneous Options where there are controls for how to handle contacts images when contacts are picked near the nadir, also, whether or not to open the digitizer and contact editor immediately after placing a contact.

  3. To capture a contact, look for the Capture Contact icon:

    This can be found in several places in the program: the Post Processing ribbon menu, in the SonarWiz Mapping toolbar, in the Contact menu of the sidescan digitizer and in the digitizer toolbars.


    Click the icon and your cursor will turn into a target cursor:

    Move your mouse over the target and click to place the target.

  4. If the option to open the digitizer view is selected, the digitizer waterfall will open and scroll so that target area is visible, click a second time to place the target on the exact area of interest:


    The cursor stays in target picking mode so that you can place additional targets. When you are done, Right-Click to stop target picking.

  5. Once completed, select a contact in the Project Explorer and click the Edit Selected Contact… command.

     

  6. Click the buttons in the Mensuration group to measure the Length, Width and Shadow. All of the measurements and User Entries you make will be stored in the contact database.

    You can step between existing contacts using the Previous and Next buttons.

     

  7. Close the Contact Editor by clicking OK.

  8. Open the Contact Manager from the Post Processing Menu.

     

  9. Click the Report Generator… button. This opens the Contact Report Generator Wizard. The report can be a PDF, HTML, KML or other types

    On the first page, Click Create a New Data Template and use the check boxes to select the Contact fields you want to export. The report can hold 20 fields in total.


    Click Next to move onto the Format section. Pick one of the default output formats or use the Create New Report button to make a new format. The formats include MS Office, Adobe PDF, Google KMZ and Generic HTML options.


    Click Next to move onto the Design page. Here you can add a report title, company logo and header and footer text. The exact options available here depend on the output format you selected previously.


    Click Finish to create your contact report.

 

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