New in Echoview 14 for all users

Feature

How it works

Benefit

You can now demarcate transects on your echograms or cruisetracks in Echoview.

• About transects
• Using transects

Use this feature to constrain your analyses to the pings of an echogram or parts of a cruisetrack that are optimized for data collection.

• Clearly visualize transects on a cruisetrack or an echogram
• Export transects to, or import transects from a *.transects.csv file
• Constrain onscreen and export analyses to the part(s) of the analysis domains that overlap with transects
• Use the transect subset operator to filter pings that only overlap with transects

Updates to the Transducer Properties interface and transducer documentation aim to help you understand and configure transducers in a variety of configurations.

• The new interactive image on the Transducer Properties Geometry page is designed to help you configure your transducer location and pointing directions.
• Working with a submerged platform discusses the roles of platform, transducer, grid and echogram settings.
• The Geometry page amalgamates settings from the Orientation and Location pages available in previous versions of Echoview.

Many aspects of Echoview are now faster, allowing you to process your data more efficiently, which will be particularly evident when using a powerful computer.

• Text *.csv file write and read times are at least twice as fast.
• Improved ICES SONAR-netCDF4 load times for the *.nc format for these echosounders
  • FCV-38
  • Furuno FSV-25
  • Simrad omnisonar
• Performance gains of up to 10x (particularly when leveraging on the speed of SSD devices) from an optimized convolution routine for computing pulse compressed Simrad EK80 ping data.

More efficient workflow and time savings.

Echolog

Updates to Echolog include:

• Echolog has new Start and Stop buttons and has improved its handling of warnings and errors.
• A new Echolog Data File Format setting Simrad EK80 (Subscription) that enables the use of subscriptions to subset or change the resolution of EK80 echogram data. This provides flexiblity for echogram feature analysis (look at parts of the water column) and can improve Echoview responsiveness through the use of lower resolution data. The Simrad EK80 Subscription uses a Configuration file to specifiy up to 9 subscriptions that can be handled by the API (Application Programming Interface) of Simrad EK80 software.
• Live viewing templates support this data file format.

Live viewing flexibility and improved control.

General changes

The following changes make Echoview features easier to use:

• EV File Properties dialog box and the Region Class Properties dialog box can now be resized.
• Echoview now allows CalibrationOffsetTs and CalibrationOffsetSv when you create and upload an EVD file comprising TS or Sv data.
• CalibrationOffsetUnspecifieddB is a calibration offset setting for unspecified dB data.
• Improved performance when selecting and deleting data files in a fileset containing many files.
• Time adjustment for the Fileset now allows the use of Specify start time.
• Echoview has improved the onscreen rendering of regions and lines on echograms.
• Platform Distance and vessel log export calculations no longer use unsuitable vessel log measurements.
• Analysis page, Surface exclusions section replaces the Bottom elimination for 3D schools detection section. The settings may be applied to 3D schools detection and now also to exports, Processed data variables and multibeam surface detection.
• Direct copy and paste of dataflow objects between EV files from different versions of Echoview is now disabled, as settings may not be transferred correctly. Use the open EV files from older Echoview versions or the import features instead.
• Using the Data section of the details dialog box, you can now easily verify the threshold settings for an acoustic variable. Simply mouse over the dataflow object of that variable.
• A new Unspecified dB Sidescan echogram.
• When vessel logs finish sooner or start later than ping data, ping distances (including distance-based cell boundaries) are now extrapolated without a limit. In Echoview 13.1 and earlier, extrapolation was limited to 30 seconds of ping data. The updated behavior now matches the extrapolation that is applied to GPS-derived distances.
• When vessel logs finish sooner or start later than ping data, ping distances (including distance-based cell boundaries) are now extrapolated without a limit. In Echoview 13.1 and earlier, extrapolation was limited to 30 seconds of ping data. The updated behavior now matches the extrapolation that is applied to GPS-derived distances.
• GPS variable Minimum acceptable gap and Maximum acceptable gap values now support decimal seconds.

New operators and operator enhancements

Introducing the Resample Multibeam Pings operator that resamples an input variable with respect to beams, samples, range and/or sector angle. Choose from a

• (weighted) mean
• minimum
• maximum
• median or
• percentile

The resampled virtual variable has a fixed ping geometry across all pings, meaning you can now use other multibeam operators (e.g., Multibeam Background Removal) that require a regular ping geometry across pings.

Code

New ping navigation attributes. We have added these attributes to the Measurement for the Code operator.

• gps_latitude
• gps_longitude
• heading
• speed
• vl_distance

Use of other Python packages with Echoview, now requires a Windows Command line specification of an Environment variable before opening Echoview. For further information refer to Using the Code operator: Using other packages with Echoview.

An update for all single target detection operators improves peak selection when no data samples and/or samples that change sign are present.

• A peak sample value preceded or followed by a no data sample is not detected as a target.
• TS values that change from negative to positive or vice versa are considered invalid for peak selection.

Vessel speed at pings

The Vessel speed at pings operator now supports multibeam operands.

Visualization and filtering.

Multibeam target samples bitmap

Introducing the Multibeam target samples bitmap operator that creates a bitmap of multibeam target sample data and can be used with a Mask operator to filter multibeam targets.

Multibeam target filtering.

Scripting and COM objects

For more information about the COM objects refer to Scripting with COM objects.

Command interface

The Echoview Command interface allows you to access Echoview properties and actions. Use the Console window to immediately interact with the Command interface. Use a script to execute batch commands.

Support includes:

• Surface Properties under the command line > Evfile | PageSurfaces
• EV File Properties for Echogram display of region types under the command line > Evfile | PageClasses
• See also: The Page* and Value* Properties OPTIONS.
• Read and write support for the Detect Schools (Echogram) Properties dialog box property Run classification after detection under the command line > Evfile | DetectSchoolsClassifyAfterDetection

Note: We strongly recommend checking that any scripts written for previous versions of Echoview that include EvApp.Exec content still works as expected. We also recommend you incorporate built-in scripting safeguards that will report any errors that may occur.

Transect groups

COM object EvTransectGroup supports

• exporting transect groups to a .transect.csv file
• getting or setting the name of the transect group
• getting or setting the notes for the transect group

Platform

COM object COM object EvPlatform supports the TransectSource class to assign a transect group to the platform.

Fileset adjust time

COM support for Fileset Properties Adjust time modes and Specify start time:

• EvFileset.SpecifiedStartTime, EvFileset.TimeOffsetMode
• enum EFilesetTimeOffsetMode

Delete existing regions support for:

• EvVariableAcoustic.DetectFishTracks
• EvVariableAcoustic.DetectSchools

The feature Window menu, Close All, WindowType is now supported by these COM methods and enum:

• EvVariableBase.CloseAssociatedViews
• EvVariableAcoustic.CloseAssociatedViews
• EvVariableVirtual.CloseAssociatedViews
• EViewType

Detect region tracks on a scene with EvScene.DetectRegionTracks.

Windows 8.1 no longer supported

Echoview computer requirements have been updated for Windows 8.1 (64-bit Edition) which is no longer supported by Microsoft.

ICES Sonar-netCDF4

A summary page of Echoview support for the ICES Sonar-netCDF4 convention for sonar data.

Breaks in lines

Updated documentation about Echoview handling for breaks in lines.

Command interface help pages

Refer to the new and updated help pages for the Echoview command interface

• About the command interface
• Using the command interface
• About the console window
• Using the console