Quick Start Guide to Interfacing the GeoPulse Compact Sub-Bottom Profiler with SonarWiz

This quick start guide will take you step-by-step through setting up and using the interface between SonarWiz and the GeoAcoustics GeoPulse Compact sub-bottom profiler for real-time data collection.

This guide contains the following sections listed in the order we recommend you follow for your first survey:

Software Installation

The CTI software required to interface with the GeoAcoustics GeoPulse Compact sub-bottom profiling system consists of SonarWiz 7.07.02 or newer and the CTI GeoAcoustics GeoPulse Compact server interface. Both of these programs should be installed on the same acquisition computer.

1. Download and install SonarWiz 7.07.02+ onto the acquisition computer. You can find the latest version of SonarWiz from the CTI Download page here: https://chesapeaketech.com/download-sonarwiz/.

2. Download and install the GeoPulse Compact Server 7.07.05+ onto the acquisition computer. You can find the latest version of the CTI real-time servers from the CTI Real-Time Server Download page here: https://chesapeaketech.com/download-real-time-servers-2/

Real-Time License Check

In order to operate SonarWiz for sub-bottom data collection, you must have a license for sub-bottom data acquisition. The method used to verify that you have the required license depends on the type of software lock you are using:

For Dongle Free License (DFL) Users:

1. Start the CTI License Manager from the Windows Start Menu

2. Click the Status Button

3. Verify that subbottom acquisition or sidescan-subbottom combo acquisition modules are licensed as shown below:
   
   

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For USB Dongle Key users:

1. Insert the USB Dongle into your computer

2. Start the CTI Dongle Manager from the Windows Start Menu

3. Click the Read Dongle button

4. Verify that Server: GeoAcoustics SB is enabled is listed in the display.
   
   

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Create a SonarWiz Project

You must create a SonarWiz project before starting data collection. A SonarWiz Project is the container or context in which all data collection and post-processing is performed.

1. Click the New Project icon in the upper-left corner of SonarWiz.

2. Enter a Project Name and Project Folder.

3. Enter the Approximate Project Position latitude and longitude.

4. Set the Coordinate Source to Always use Ship Position.

5. Set the Time Constant for Course Smoothing to 300 (default)

6. Check the Automatically Select Coordinate System box to let SonarWiz pick an appropriate UTM coordinate system, or uncheck this box and use the Browse Coordinate Systems… button to select a different coordinate system.

7. Click OK to create the new project.
   
   

Add Basemaps and Overlays

While planning your survey, it is useful to display charts, bathymetry grids, and vector files such as survey polygons and other line files. SonarWiz uses the term Basemap (and GeoImages) to represent data that appears under the sonar data such as nautical charts or shaded bathymetry. SonarWiz uses the term Overlays to represent data that appears on top of the sonar data, typically vector polygons such as survey areas, cable or pipeline routing maps, etc. SonarWiz supports dozens image, raster and vector formats.

To add a Basemaps, GeoImages or Overlays to your project:

1. Right-Click the Maps branch in the Project Explorer and select Add Base map or Add GeoImage or Add Overlay from the Context Menu.

2. Select the file or files that you want to add to the project.

3. Your files will be displayed in the Maps branch of the Project Explorer where you can turn them on or off by checking the box next to their name.
   
   

    

Add Planned Survey Lines

On the Data Acquisition ribbon you will find the Survey Lines group which allows you to lay out your survey line plan before you start data collection. Survey Lines can be added individually or created in groups of parallel lines.

To Add a Survey Lines to a Project:

1. Zoom into the area where you want to place your first survey line.

2. Select Data Acquisition > Add Line

3. Your mouse cursor will change to look like a drawing pen.

4. Left-Click to start the line.

5. Left-Click again to stop drawing the line.

To Generate Lines Parallel to a Selected Line:

1. Right-Click a Survey Line to open the Context Menu

2. Select Generate Lines Parallel to the Selected Line…

3. In the Cloning Line dialog, fill in the desired settings for the new lines

4. Click OK
   
   

    

5. These new lines will also be listed in the Survey Lines branch of the Project Explorer

    

Configure Real-Time Log File Settings

Before you start logging data you should review the File Options settings in the SonarWiz Preferences and Settings menu. Here you can configure where SonarWiz will record new files and how those files will be named.

To Open the File Options dialog:

1. Click on the green Options icon in the upper-left corner of SonarWiz

2. Click on the File Options icon in the left-hand icon bar in the Preferences and Settings dialog

3. Review or Set the Log Data Files Path (defaults to your current project folder)

4. Review or Set the Real Time File Settings to control the automatic naming convention and file size limits of recorded lines.

Configuring SEG-Y output options

During sub-bottom data acquisition, SonarWiz records two different records of your survey. The first is a CSF file, recorded into the CSF folder or your project. The second is a SEG-Y file recorded in the SBP folder of your project. The CSF file is the proprietary SonarWiz format. It is used to display and QC the SBP record in SonarWiz. You can consider the CSF file a temporary record of the survey. The SEG-Y file is a non-proprietary, industry-standard format and this is the permanent “raw” data of your survey. The SEG-Y file can be imported by most 3rd-party sub-bottom processing software, including SonarWiz with a sub-bottom processing license.

There are some settings that allow you to control how the SEG-Y file is recorded. It is a good idea to review these settings prior to starting your survey.

To Open SEG-Y File Type Specific Options:

1. Click the Options icon in the upper-left corner of SonarWiz

2. Click the File Options icon in the icon bar

3. Click the File Type Specific Options… button

4. Click on the SEG-Y tab to show SEG-Y options
   
   

Create a Real-Time Screen Layout

SonarWiz has a large number of dockable windows and widgets. The default screen layout shows only the basic controls. You can add or remove windows and widgets to the screen layout and then save the new layout for later use. At any time, you can recall saved screen layouts to reconfigure the SonarWiz screen.

What we want to do now, is create and save a screen layout that is optimized for data collection. We will add screen widgets that are important for real-time quality control and system monitoring.

On the View Ribbon Menu, you will find the Data Displays group. The Data Acquisition Views drop-down contains more than a dozen real-time monitoring widgets. To turn these widgets on, Click on the Data Acquisition Views icon and then click on the desired widget.

We want to enable the following widgets:

• Waterfall Display 1

• System Information

• Sensor Status

• Left-Right Steering Indicator

To Enable and Dock a widget:

1. Click on the Data Acquisition Views drop-down

2. Left-Click and drag the Waterfall Display 1 with the mouse

3. While holding the mouse button down, hover the mouse over one of the docking icons that appear as you pan over the screen

4. Release the mouse to drop the Waterfall display into place as shown below:
   
   

    

5. Repeat this for each of the Waterfall Display 1, the System Information panel, the Sensor Status Panel and the Left-Right Steering indicator. We placed the widgets like this:
   
   

Next, we need to save this layout for future use on the boat.

To Save a Screen Layout:

1. Click on View Menu > Layout Manager icon

2. Click on the Save New Layout button

3. Give the new layout a name

4. Click OK to save the layout

To Load a Screen Layout:

1. Click on the View Menu > Layout Manager icon

2. Select the layout you want to load

3. Click the Load Layout button

Starting the GeoPulse Compact Sonar Interface

The GeoPulse Compact Sonar Interface (GPCI) provides the real-time data interface for working with the GeoAcoustics GeoPulse Compact sub-bottom profiling system. The interface provides command, control and data to and from the GeoPulse Compact system. The interface should be installed and run on the same computer as SonarWiz.

To Start the GeoPulse Compact Server

1. Open your SonarWiz project.

2. Click the Data Acquisition > Sonar icon to open the Select Sonar Interface dialog

3. In the Sub-Bottom section, look for the GeoPulseCompact server and select it.

4. Click the Start/Configure button
   
   

    

5. At this point the GPCI interface should launch. Verify that the GeoPulse Compact interface is listed in the Current Servers: SubBottom section.
   
   

    

6. Verify that the SonarWiz indicator is green on the GPCI. This indicates that the server has a connection to SonarWiz.
   
   

    

Connect the Server to the Towfish Interface Box (TIB)

The SonarWiz GeoPulse Compact server interface (GPCI) is pre-configured to connect to the GeoAcoustics Towfish Interface Box (TIB) over TCP/IP address: 10.0.0.44 using port 35700 for sending commands, and listening on port 35701 for receiving data. These values are the GeoAcoustics default. If these values are ok, you can simply hit the Connect button to establish a connection between the GPCI and the TIB.

To establish a connection to the TIB, the unit must be connected to power and switched on. It is possible to connect without the sonar powered but data will not be received.

If you have a successful connection, you should see that the GeoPulse Compact Data and GeoPulse Compact Command indicator lights change from red to green.

After a few moments, the command indicator will turn yellow and only return to green when new settings are applied.

To modify the default TIB TCP/IP Connection address:

1. Click the Advanced… button on the GPCI to open the Advanced Settings dialog.

2. Review the Connection Parameters section of the Advanced Settings dialog and modify them as required.
   
   

    

3. Click OK to apply the new settings.

4. Verify that the GeoPulse Compact Data and GeoPulse Compact Command indicator lights change from red to green.

Configure Towfish Navigation, Attitude and Heave

SonarWiz can be configured to accept navigation and attitude information in two different ways:

1. By feeding all of the auxiliary sensors through the GeoAcoustics TIB and letting the TIB transmit these values to SonarWiz along with the sonar data (this is the recommended option); or

2. By feeding all auxiliary sensor data into SonarWiz and having the TIB only transmit sub-bottom ping data.

Feeding Navigation, Attitude and Heave through the TIB

In this scenario, SonarWiz will listen for navigation and attitude packets transmitted by the TIB along with the sonar data. The SonarWiz GPCI server will display these values as they are transmitted from the TIB to SonarWiz in the Parsed Aux Data display of the GPCI:

To enable processing of navigation and attitude packets from the TIB:

1. Click the Advanced… button

2. Check Process AuxDataIn for position, heading and motion.
   
   

    

Feeding Navigation and Heave into SonarWiz

In this scenario, the GeoAcoustics TIB box will only transmit ping data to the GCPI, the navigation and auxiliary data is connected directly to SonarWiz.

To ignore navigation and attitude packets transmitted from the TIB:

1. Click the Advanced… button

2. Uncheck Process AuxDataIn for position, heading and motion.
   
   

To Connect a Navigation Feed into SonarWiz:

1. Open the Navigation Input Setup dialog by clicking Data Acquisition > Navigation in SonarWiz.

2. Check Enable Nav IO to activate the SonarWiz navigation interface

3. Select the Navigation Source type from the drop down.

4. Select either Serial Port or UDP Port connection type and fill in the connection properties.

5. For Source Type: NMEA-0183, tell SonarWiz which position and heading packets to expect.

6. Optionally, open the Layback Setup dialog to compute Towfish position instead of ship position
   
   

    

To connect a motion sensor feed into SonarWiz

1. Open the Motion Sensor Setup dialog by clicking Data Acquisition > Motion Sensor in SonarWiz.

2. Check Enable Serial IO

3. Fill out the Serial Connection Properties

4. Select the Motion Sensor Type and Data Format

5. Optionally, output the motion sensor data into an file (there are two options)

6. Optionally, override the navigation sensor heading with the motion sensor heading value

7. Click OK
   
   

    

Configure Software Compatibility

Some post-processing software have known file compatibility issues. SonarWiz can prevent you from making files that cannot be processed by these software suites.

To enable Software Compatibility:

1. Click the Advanced… button

2. In the Post-processing Software Compatibility group, Select the radio button next to your sub-bottom processing software.
   
   

Configure Sound Velocity

In order to convert ping two-way travel time to range, the GCPI uses a sound velocity of 1500 m/s. This is the approximate speed of sound in standard sea water. This value will be stored in the file for use by post-processing software and should be updated as required.

To modify the default speed of sound of the GCPI:

1. Click the Advanced… button

2. Enter the Sound Speed in Water for your survey area (m/s)
   
   

    

3. Click OK.

Configure Server Acquisition and Transmitter Settings

Once a connection has been established between the SonarWiz GCPI and the GeoAcoustics TIB, the GCPI will allow you to control the Sonar Acquisition and Transmitter setting directly from the GCPI interface. Some of the interface elements, such as the Chirp Pulse Waveform and the Correlation Method depend on the GeoPulse Compact firmware and are populated in the SonarWiz GCPI after communication with the TIB has been established.

Verify Sonar Data is Flowing from the TIB to SonarWiz

After the connection is established between the GCPI and the TIB, and the GeoPulse Compact is pinging. The GCPI should indicate that data is flowing in several ways:

1. The Parsed Aux Data section is displaying position, attitude and heave information

2. The Hydrophone and Transducer QC displays are scrolling raw ping profiles

3. The Ping Data display is showing sonar intensity statistics, ping number, range and samples of the most recent pings.

4. (if enabled) the Select Diagnostic Data to Display section shows the selected messages.

In SonarWiz, you should see:

1. The System Information panel should show the vessel position and speed.

2. The Sensor Status panel should indicate that Navigation is enabled and Subbottom is enabled. It should indicate the age in milliseconds since the most recent update.

3. The Waterfall display should show sub-bottom data scrolling across the display

4. If you click the Auto Ship Centering in the Mapping Tool Bar, the main map display should snap to the position of your vessel. The vessel is indicated by a cartoon outline of a ship.

Configure the Waterfall display for Sub-bottom

The Real-Time Waterfall displays in SonarWiz can display up to 2-channels of sidescan and 2-channels of sub-bottom data simultaneously. When you first open these displays they may be configured to display channels you are not using.

To Reconfigure the Real-Time Waterfall display:

1. Click the Gear icon in the toolbar of the waterfall display

2. Select (check) the sub-bottom and sidescan channels you want to display. Unselect (uncheck) the channels you do not want to display.

3. Optionally, for sub-bottom data you can apply heave compensation if you have a heave sensor, or if you do not, you can use the swell filter (you will need a good bottom track for the swell filter to work).

Adjust SBP Gains

Most sub-bottom data requires gain adjustments to look it’s best. SonarWiz provides a band-pass filter, AutoTVG, AGC, ping stacking, and water column blanking.

To adjust sub-bottom gains in the real-time waterfall:

1. Right-click in the real-time waterfall display you want to adjust

2. Select Adjust SBP Gains… from the Context Menu

3. Adjust the gain settings as desired

4. Click OK to apply the settings

Adjust Real-Time Bottom Tracking

The realtime-bottom tracker is used to compute altitude for systems which do not compute altitude in the towfish. Although this can be done in post-processing, it is useful to have a valid bottom track in real-time so that you can apply the swell filter to the real-time display. The Real-Time bottom tracker is accessed similar to the real-time gain settings.

To enable and modify the settings for the real-time bottom tracker:

1. Right-click the waterfall display where you want to enable the real-time bottom tracker

2. In the Context Menu, select Real-Time Bottom Tracker.

3. In the Real-Time Altitude Tracker window

   1. Enable the Auto Tracker in the check box

   2. Select the radio button for SSS or SBP as appropriate

   3. Select the radio button for the channel you want to track

   4. Select if you want to Use Telemetered Altitude from the towfish

   5. Select if you want to Trace the bottom track on the display

4. If you do not have Telemetered altitude from the towfish, or you want to re-compute the altitude using the SonarWiz algorithms, uncheck the Use Telemetered Altitude check box and:

   1. Adjust the Threshold percentage (higher if the bottom track is not reaching the bottom, lower if it going below the bottom)

   2. Set the blanking distance below the surface reverberation

   3. Set the duration to the number of samples the bottom trace must be. If your water column is noisy this setting helps the tracker jump over speckle in the watercolumn

   4. Enable tracker smoothing once you have the tracker locked onto the bottom

   5. Click the Apply button to check current settings.

   6. Close the window when done.

Adjust the Color Palette

The Color window controls how a color palette is mapped to sonar data in the SonarWiz. SonarWiz supports two different kinds of color palettes for sub-bottom data. Linear palettes for unipolar data (data with positive intensities only), and symmetrical palettes for bi-polar data (data with both positive and negative intensities).

To open the Color window:

1. Click the Color Window icon in the mapping toolbar.

2. In the Datatype drop-down, select the Sub-bottom channel you want to adjust

3. In the Palette Options drop down, select the color palette, optionally select to Smooth or Invert the palette.

4. In the Scale Mode drop down, select one of the automatic modes if you want SonarWiz to automatically adjust the color palette to your data as it is collected, or, select manual mode if you want to adjust the color palette yourself.

Steer a Selected Survey Line

Once you are ready to start your survey, align the boat with the first of your planned survey lines and steer the selected line. The Left/Right Steering Indicator will indicate how far off the planned line the vessel is maintaining. It also indicates how far along the line and how far remains of the line.

To Steer a planned survey line:

1. Select the line you want to steer

2. Right-Click the line to open the line Context Menu

3. Select Steer the Selected Line

If necessary, you can reverse a selected line, add run-in and run-out so that the tow-fish is properly aligned before it reaches the planned survey line or before you start the turn at the end of the line.

Recording a line

When ready to start recording data. Switch to the Data Acquisition menu.

To Record a track line:

1. Verify that data is feeding into SonarWiz. In the status bar, the navigation icon and the sonar icon should not have a red X flashing. The data recording icon will show a red X until you start recording.

2. Click the Quick Record button in the Data Acquisition Menu.

3. Verify that a new sub-bottom file is added to the Project Explorer and you will see red “Rec” icons in the main view and the real-time waterfall display.
   
   

   There should be no red “X” flashing in the status bar

    

4. When you are ready to stop data collection. Click the Stop Recording button.
   
   

   
   The sub-bottom file will be closed and the red “Rec” icons will disappear and a red “X” will appear in the status bar over the data recording icon:

    

For each of your recorded tracks, you will have two records of the data:

1. A CSF file is created along with several associated data files in the CSF folder of your project. The CSF files is a proprietary file that is displayed in SonarWiz for QC purposes. This file is only used only by SonarWiz.

2. A SEG-Y file located in the SBP folder of your project. This is the permanent record of your recording. This file is non-proprietary and can be easily imported into SonarWiz (with a sub-bottom processing license) or other sub-bottom analysis software.

Replaying a SEG-Y file

After data collection, your raw Sub-Bottom data is stored in SEG-Y format in the SBP folder of your project. You can review the data you’ve collected using the SonarWiz Playback utility.

To review a previously recorded sub-bottom SEG-Y file:

1. Click Post-Processing > Playback to open a SEG-Y
   
   

    

2. Select the files you want to review and Click Open

3. Use the green controls at the top of the waterfall display to control the playback
   
   

    

   View of SonarWiz during file playback:
   
   

    

Shutting Down SonarWiz and the GeoPulse Compact Server

To safely shut down SonarWiz:

1. Click the Stop Recording icon to stop all logging.

2. Open the Sonar Interface window by click Data Acquisition > Sonar.

3. In the Current Servers section, click Disconnect from any servers that are currently listed.
   
   

    

4. In the GeoPulseCompact Interface server, click Disconnect button.

5. Close the server.

6. Close SonarWiz.

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