SonarWiz Quick Guide

Sub-Bottom Processing

Revision 1, 2020-02-03

Chesapeake Technology, Inc.

eMail: ​[email protected]
Main Web site: ​http://www.chesapeaketech.com
Support Web site: ​https://sonarwiz.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/3

Chesapeake Technology, Inc.

4906 El Camino Real, Ste 206
Los Altos, CA 94022
United States of America

Tel: 650-967-2045
Fax: 650-450-9300
1. Click the ​New Project​ Icon to open the ​Create New Project Dialog

2. Enter a ​Project name​ and ​Project Folder​, then set the approximate position of the data.
This can be done either by entering in a known location or ​Get from File​ – navigate to a
single file from the project (note: at this point, only one file is needed to set the geodesy,
regardless of the number to be processed). Double-check that SonarWiz selects an
appropriate Coordinate System for your project.

It is important to set the ​Coordinate Source​ properly. If the navigation in your files has
already had layback applied, then you should use the ​Always Use FIsh Position​ option.
Otherwise, you should select ​Always Use Ship Position​ and then you will set up the
layback computation in SonarWiz after the files are imported.
3. Open the ​Program Properties​ (click the green “chicken-foot” button)

4. Select the ​Advanced Settings​ page and review the ​Default Water Column Sound
Velocity​ and ​Default Sediment Sound Velocity​.

5. In the program, go to the second tab -- Post Processing -- and select ​Import |
Sub-Bottom Files​.
6. Select data files to import. Multiple files can be selected at once.

7. In the ​File type Specific Options​… button, you can select particulars to your file format
and system. This is often necessary for SEG-Y import to properly extract position and
depth.
8. The sub-bottom data will be loaded into the program. The next few steps get the data
adjusted with gains, bottom track and other tools to create a nice image.

9. Bottom track. ​Right click​ on a file and select the ​Bottom Track...​ option. Set the
blanking zone (distance from ping to an area below any apparent noise) and threshold (a
 value of change detection) then click the ​Track All​ button. Typically the lower number
finds smaller changes, and could track noise/fish, etc in the water column. A number too
high will go past the bottom into the data. In this example, I use a blanking of 10 and
threshold of 1.

10. Go through all of the files, using the ​next ​and ​previous ​buttons until you reach the end
of the files. (See also the ​Batch Bottom Track​ command)

11. Gain controls. Select the ​Appearance Tab​ in the SBP Analysis Window and click on the
Gain Settings Icon​. This will bring up the gain control window. Note: you only need to
do these settings on a single file, as we will use the “Make Like Others” option to copy
over the settings later.
Here you will find the Bandpass filter, Ping Stacking, Water Column Blanking option and
AGC. Try different settings to see which makes the image look best.

Result:
12. If this is the setting that is to be used, then we will make the others just like this one.
Select the file, and go to ​Make Others Like This​.

A dialog box will show which files to use, and which settings to make. You can select
ALL files and Apply All settings, which will take in the gain and other changes made to
the first file. Bottom track is not an option, which is why we did that initially.
13. The next step is to vertically align the sub-bottom data to a bathymetric surface.
Right-click the ​Grids ​branch of the ​Project Explorer​ and select ​Add/Import Grid
Files… ​to load your grid into the program.

You can adjust the shaded relief effect of the grid in the ​View menu​.
14. Click on the ​Post Processing tab | Datum Align to Bathy Grid…​ command

Select the bathymetry grid from the drop-down menu and select all of the sub-bottom
files as shown.
 Click ​OK​.

15. The next step is to ​Compute Intersections b ​ etween our SBPs. This allows SonarWiz to
visualize intersecting profiles and their feature markers in the digitizer. It also sets up
navigation jumps between the intersecting lines (double-click the intersection line in the
digitizer).

Open the ​Intersection Manager​ from the ​Post Processing​ ribbon

Click the ​Compute​ button

Click ​OK​ to close the Intersection Manager

16. To visualize how your datum alignment worked, ​Right-Click​ an ​intersection marker​ in
the map view (or in the Project Explorer) and select ​Quick View 3D​ command
This will open the 3D viewer in intersection mode where you can examine the vertical
alignment of your intersecting profiles.
17. In the ​Sub-bottom Analysis ​window, select the B ​ ottom Track​ tab and convert the
bottom track to a seafloor reflector by clicking on the ​Make Reflector​ button.

Set the ​Downsample bottom track points ​value to ​1 (All)​ and click ​OK​.

18. Switch to the ​Acoustic Reflectors​ tab and note that the new seafloor reflector has been
added to the drop down list:

It is also listed in the ​Project Explorer​ under the ​Features ​branch:

19. To digitize an ​Acoustic Reflector​ in the sub-bottom analysis window, click the ​New
button. This will open the ​Create New Reflector​ dialog where you can set the Name,
sound velocity and line properties of the reflector. The sound velocity entered here is
used to compute the depth of this reflector below the seafloor.

Note:​ One or more features that have the same ​Name ​are implicitly considered
observations of the same horizon. Later, you can export features by name and all of the
observations will be collected together and treated like a single unit.
Click ​OK ​to start digitizing the new reflector.

Your cursor will turn into a pen and you use the​ left mouse button​ to trace the reflector
in the profile. ​Right-Click 1 time​ to lift the pen and move to a new location to start
tracing the same reflector again. ​Right-Click 2 times​ to finish drawing and close the
feature.

When you close the feature drawing (​Right-Click 2 times​), you will see your feature
drawn in the display. The feature will also be listed in the ​Features​ branch of the ​Project
Explorer​ and in the​ Feature drop-down​ list of the ​SBP Analysis Window​.
20. To Edit a feature​. Select the feature with the mouse and use the toolbar icons in the
Acoustic Reflector ribbon menu to modify the vertices.

21. To Compute the Thickness between two features​. Select the ​Compute Thickness
icon​ in the ​Acoustic Reflector​ ribbon menu. Then specify the ​Top​ and ​Bottom
reflectors. Remember you can convert your bottom track to a reflector (See Step 17
above).
 This will produce a ​Thickness ​feature which you can export later in the workflow.

22. Once you have digitized all of your acoustic horizons and computed thicknesses
between horizons, you can export these features to spreadsheets and 3D vector files
from the ​Feature Manager​. Open the ​Feature Manager​ from the ​Post Processing
Ribbon menu​.
23. To Export a Thickness feature ​as a table of positions and thickness values click the
Export ​button from the ​Feature Manager​.

- Select ​Export by Feature name

- Export Format: ​ASCII Simple Thickness
- SBP Datum Separation ​Checked
 Then ​Select the THK (thickness)​ feature you want to export. Make a note of the output
location.

The program will export a CSV file containing the thickness estimate down the profile.

24. To Create a Depth Grid of an Acoustic Horizon ​click the ​Export​ button in the F
​ eature
Manager​.
- Select ​Export by Feature name
- Export Format: ​XYZ Text
- SBP Datum Separation ​Checked (This is important because we adjusted the depth
of our profiles using a datum grid)

Then ​Select the horizon​ ​feature​ you want to export. Make a note of the output location.

The program will export a CSV file containing the (easting,northing,depth) coordinates of
the horizon observations along all profiles where it was recorded.
25. To Create a Grid from the XYZ file. Right-Click Grids​ in the ​Project Explorer​ and
select the ​Create New Grid…​ command.

26. In ​Gridding Setup​ dialog:

- Select ​External XYZ File​, then enter the path to the XYZ file you exported above.
- Select ​Grid Cell Size​ fairly large. (I recommend a spacing about 1/10th the distance
between tracklines to start)
- Select ​Natural Neighbor​ as the gridding algorithm. This is best for smooth
interpolation. But it is very slow, so adjust the cell size accordingly!

The resulting grid of the horizon is added to the project:

27. Create contours of the depth horizon grid by​ Right-Clicking​ the grid and selecting the
Contour Grid…​ command
 The resulting vector map is overlayed on top of the grid:

28. To Visualize your SBP and Horizon grids in the 3D Viewer​ first enable the 3D
Window in the ​View Ribbon Menu​.

29. Select one or more of the SBP profiles you want to visualize in 3D and check the
Display in 3D View​ option found in the ​Display ​property of the profiles.
The profiles will appear in the 3D View. Use the Green Handle to control the vertical
exaggeration.
30. You can add elevation grids to the 3D display as well, including the Acoustic Horizon grid
we made earlier. ​Select the grids​ you want to add to the 3D display, and check the
Display in 3D View​ property found on the ​Display​ tab in the ​Properties Window​.
The grid will appear vertically aligned with the sub-bottom profiles
31. To export sub-bottom profiles as images​ use the ​Post Processing | Export | Batch
Image Export​ command.

This opens the Batch Image Export dialog where you can set the output format and
resolution of the profiles.
Note that you control the vertical and horizontal resolution of SBP Images in the
Program Properties | SBP Options page​ which can be accessed from the ​green
chicken-foot menu​ or from the ​Preferences ​icon in the ​Appearance​ tab of the ​SBP
Analysis window​.

The resulting images (here scaled with 10x VE)