Hummingbird (Fishfinder) sidescan sonar mosaic / georeferencing

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03-22-2011 08:16 PM
BradDuncan
New Contributor
I am currently investigating whether it is possible to bring side scan sonar image data from Hummingbird fishfinders into a GIS format to allow them to be mosaic-ed or georeferenced.  Has anyone had any luck doing this or even tried?

Brad Duncan
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8 Replies
BruceHarold
Esri Regular Contributor
Hi Brad

Can you supply sample data and/or a technical description of it?

Regards
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ToreLeraand
New Contributor
Hi Brad,

SonarTRX and SonarTRX-SI are two software products that generates geo-referenced images from sonar files.
World files and prj files are generated for each image tile, so they can be imported.

- SonarTRX-SI supports Humminbird Side Imaging (SI) sonars.
- SonarTRX supports Humminbird and other sonar file formats such as XTF(, including Lowrance XTF), and Imagenex (Yellowfin & SportScan)

If you do a Google search for "SonarTRX kayak" you should find many links to an article and a YouTube video written by a British user. There is also an Australian user who wrote about it on the hobiecat forum:

http://www.hobiecat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=33777


For anyone interested in this, please get in touch, and I can send sample images.


Best Regards,

Tore

Email: tore@SonarTRX.com
Web: www.sonartrx.com
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BradDuncan
New Contributor
I will pull some data out this weekend and get it to you.  Thanks bruce.  Although the data is linked contain GIS locations, I want to be able to overlay multiple search lanes in GIS, and the data does not currently appear to be exportable to this format nor currently georeferenced.

Thanks again

Brad

Hi Brad

Can you supply sample data and/or a technical description of it?

Regards
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BradDuncan
New Contributor
Thanks Tore

That certainly looks very interesting! Does the software allow you to export to a geotiff format for use in a GIS environment (eg ARCGIS or ARCView??

Brad

Hi Brad, 

SonarTRX and SonarTRX-SI are two software products that generates geo-referenced images from sonar files. 
World files and prj files are generated for each image tile, so they can be imported. 

- SonarTRX-SI supports Humminbird Side Imaging (SI) sonars. 
- SonarTRX supports Humminbird and other sonar file formats such as XTF(, including Lowrance XTF), and Imagenex (Yellowfin & SportScan) 

If you do a Google search for "SonarTRX kayak" you should find many links to an article and a YouTube video written by a British user. There is also an Australian user who wrote about it on the hobiecat forum: 

http://www.hobiecat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=33777


For anyone interested in this, please get in touch, and I can send sample images. 


Best Regards, 

Tore 

Email:   tore@SonarTRX.com
Web:   www.sonartrx.com
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ToreLeraand
New Contributor
Hi Brad,

SonarTRX-SI currently saves to PNG or Tiff (not geotiff), but will produce a world file and prj file for each image. A generated png image tile would include the image file itself and optional coordinate system/projection files:

image.png

----if prj/world file option is turned on:
image.pgw
image.prj

----if Manifold GIS coordinate system option is turned on:
image.xml

----if Fugawi ENC option is turned on:
image.jpr


The ellipsoid is WGS-84, and there are two projection options:

- Local Transverse Mercator for each image tile (i.e. The world file is in meters relative to a reference point on the tile, as defined in the prj file's projection)

- Geodetic (i.e. The world file is in degrees, relative to 0 deg. North, 0 deg. East)

I hope this helps.


Best Regards,

Tore
tore@sonartrx.com

www.sonartrx.com
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BradDuncan
New Contributor
Hi Bruce

Do you have an offline email address that I can send this to? 

Thanks

Brad

I will pull some data out this weekend and get it to you.  Thanks bruce.  Although the data is linked contain GIS locations, I want to be able to overlay multiple search lanes in GIS, and the data does not currently appear to be exportable to this format nor currently georeferenced.

Thanks again

Brad
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ToreLeraand
New Contributor
Thanks Tore 

That certainly looks very interesting! Does the software allow you to export to a geotiff format for use in a GIS environment (eg ARCGIS or ARCView?? 

Brad


Hi Brad,

Please let me know if you would like to get a license for SonarTRX.

You can also send sample sonar recordings, if you prefer to see sample output from the program.
(The resulting raster images imports fine into ESRI products.)

support@sonartrx.com
http://www.sonartrx.com
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ScottSires
New Contributor II
Hello Bruce and Brad. I too have a Humminbird 997c SI and use it to collect SONAR data in Belize. I have successfully used the freeware HumViewer to view our collected files (.SON). We can, with HumViewer, see the GPS track, the cross section of the intensity and the rendering of the scrolling image. We can also export CSV with data necessary to apply the IDW raster interpolation in order to create an awesome sea floor surface.

However, I want to also export a variable for each sonar point (2 million thus far) so that I can create another raster surface of the intensity. And I would like to drape the imagery over the sea floor surface as well.

Thanks in advance for any reflections.
Scott
J. Scott Sires
Geospatial Technology Program
Professor & Coordinator

Brookhaven College
Ellison Miles Geotechnology Institute
3939 Valley View Lane
Bldg. H, H-115
Farmers Branch, Texas, 75244

972-860-4362

ssires@dcccd.edu
www.brookhavencollege.edu/emgi
www.dcccd.edu/gis