New in Echoview 4.20 for all users

Feature

Benefit

New Echoview Sonar modules

Three new Echoview Sonar modules offer families of functions tailored for specific purposes. You have a choice of modules for the handling of scanning sonar and multibeam sonar data. They are:

• Stationary sonar module
• 2D Sonar module
• 3D Sonar module

Base module enhancement

Echoview is pleased to announce that 4D Visualization tools are now licensed with the Base module. Such tools allow you to:

• Use scenes
• Display surfaces and curtains created from single beam echograms and single beam virtual echograms
• Import surfaces
• Export scenes in VRML format.

New scripting automation model

We continue to develop support for scripting using COM object automation. The key advantage of this automation model is that Echoview can pass information back to the script. It is now possible for scripts to make informed decisions, request decisions from the user, and pass information from Echoview to the user. If you are interested to know more about COM automation, please contact us for further information. It is important to note that COM automation is in a highly developmental state and that we cannot guarantee backwards compatibility in future versions.

Relative Mean dB Graph enhancement

The Relative Mean dB graph can now display the Relative Mean dB relative to 0dB for a linked region or selection. This is achieved by not setting a reference variable.

Threshold Response graph design change

The Threshold Response graph now allows the display of multiple variables and is now accessed via the View menu.

Note that Threshold response graphs saved in EV files created prior to Echoview 4.20 will need to be reconfigured.

New Operators and Operator enhancements

These new operators and operator enhancements give you powerful and more flexible tools to process your data.

• A new Distance correction operator that allows you to apply an offset and scaling to a distance variable. This may be useful in the case where Vessel logs have known errors associated with the distance data.
• A new Beam subset operator that allows you to create a variable with specified beams from a multibeam operand.
• A new 3 color maximum operator that takes 3 operands, converts them to a specified color and creates a virtual variable with samples that have a color that is the maximum of the operands. This allows for the efficient creation of a multi-frequency echogram from three distinct frequencies. This is an example of an operator that has been built and tested by Echoview users in the virtual variable environment - it now receives a substantial boost in performance and ease-of-use by being coded directly into Echoview.
• The Ping time shift operator can now be used to shift data a specified number pings in time.
• The Resample operators are now licensed under the Analysis export module (previously the Virtual Echogram module was required).
• The dB type conversion operator has been renamed to the Type conversion operator and has been enhanced to accept an input operand of Fish length type. This then allows you to mask any single beam echogram with respect to defined Fish length limits.
• A new TS substitution operator that substitutes custom fields from an imported CSV single targets file into the TS_comp and/or TS_uncomp columns of a single targets virtual variable. This gives you more flexibility for the visual processing of single targets data.

Virtual line enhancements

Echoview introduces new Line operators, licensed under the Bathymetry module. These enhancements mirror the line creation functions available when editable lines are created. Virtual lines are easily viewed, created and modified in the Variables and Geometry window and on the echogram.

Together with the operators Fixed depth and Linear offset, new line operators such as:

• Maximum Sv line pick
• Span gaps
• Off-axis angle offset

and will be particularly useful when used in templates to process your data.

For more information refer to About lines.

Support for all NMEA GPS strings and new GPS filter

Echoview now accepts all NMEA GPS strings. You can view the details of the GPS strings contained in the position variable on the new Fixes page of the Variable Properties dialog box. To tailor the position variable, we introduce a GPS filter operator. Reducing the number of GPS streams that contribute to your ping position data can provide benefits to performance and accuracy for your data processing. For more information refer to Processing and smoothing cruise tracks.

3D school detection enhancements

These enhancements and features give you more information about the settings for 3D school detection and the ability to do a quick detection for a displayed ping:

• Two new tabs for the 3D schools detection properties dialog box, that are used to set the properties that will be applied to the 3D school detection algorithm.
• Restrictions regarding platform settings for the By ping algorithm are made clear.
• Echoview now offers a detection on a displayed ping; it uses the By ping algorithm.
• A reference to a recent paper on the estimation of school volumes using multibeam sonars has been added to the help file.

Single targets data exports, an enhancement.

A Single targets data export can now include a variable related to the bottom depth. This variable introduces a significant improvement to your workflow when analyzing single targets data.

Bug fixes

GPS fixes which have the same time stamp are now processed and displayed correctly. This release's GPS enhancement and new GPS filter complement this bug fix.

Microsoft Windows Vista and Echoview

We are continuing to work on support for the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system in version 4.20 and beyond. Refer to Echoview and Microsoft Windows Vista for known issues and information on how to run Echoview under Microsoft Windows Vista.

Ping cache improvements

We have implemented an entirely new and fully automated memory management system for caching ping data. Significant performance problems experienced by some users with extremely large data sets will no longer be experienced and a small overall gain in performance can be expected by all. The manual Performance settings on the Echoview Configuration dialog box are no longer relevant. As a result, the Performance page of the Echoview Configuration dialog box has been removed.