User Manual
Info
If you opened this documentation from the Sonarcal program you will be reading the offline version. The online version is available here.
Introduction
This is the user documentation for Sonarcal, a program to assist with calibrating fisheries sonars using the target sphere method. Sonarcal currently supports these sonars and file formats:
| Brand | Model | Supported file format |
|---|---|---|
| Furuno | FSV25 | sonar-netCDF4 |
| Simrad | SU90 & SX90 | sonar-netCDF4** |
| Simrad | CS90 | raw & sonar-netCDF4* |
| Simrad | SN90 | raw & sonar-netCDF4* |
(* = under development, ** = requires testing)
Other sonars that output sonar-netCDF4 files may also work, but there can often be small adjustments needed for full support. Contact the developer via Sonarcal's GitHub page for further information.
The current form of this program was funded by AZTI. Earlier versions were developed while the author was employed at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research.
Installation
Sonarcal requires Python version 3.11 or higher. If you are unfamiliar with installing and running Python programs we recommend using uv (see below).
Sonarcal is installed from the command line via:
and upgraded via:
The latest version of Sonarcal will always be listed here. Sonarcal has been developed on Windows and is tested on Linux and MacOS. It may work on other operating systems.
Using uv
uv can be used to install Python and Sonarcal and then to run Sonarcal. uv creates a Python installation just for Sonarcal (it is independent of all other Python installations on your computer).
Install uv using the instructions here, then install Sonarcal with this command:
and run Sonarcal with this command:
uv's installation of Sonarcal can be upgraded with this command:
How to use
Sonarcal is started from a command line with:
(or if using uv, the command is uv tool run sonarcal).
It make take a few seconds to start, after which the Sonarcal window will appear:
The main operation screen.
If there are suitable sonar files in the configured data directory, the program will, depending on configuration, either start to replay the most recent file in the directory or display the most recent ping in the most recent file and then wait for the next ping to be written to that file.
Each new ping is displayed in the polar plot to the left. The three centre plots show an echogram of the data from the three sonar beams at and adjacent to the beam line (the black radial line in the polar plot).
The target strength of the maximum amplitude echo on the three beams between the minimum and maximum ranges is shown in the plots to the right. The upper plot uses black lines for the selected beam, red for the beam to port, and green for starboard. The lower plot shows the difference in amplitude between the echo in the centre beam and the two adjacent beams.
The upper right plot also includes smoothed lines to aid in seeing trends in the sphere amplitude - these use a thicker line style than the raw echo amplitudes.
The beam being calibrated is selected by using the mouse to click on and drag the black radial line on the polar plot. The range over which the sphere is detected is chosen by clicking on and dragging the two range rings in the polar plot.
The echogram colour bounds can be adjusted by clicking and dragging on the slider to the left of the polar plot.
Calibrating
When using Sonarcal to calibrate, follow these steps:
- Start Sonarcal
- In the Config dialog:
- Set the calibration sphere TS
- Set the sonar data directory to where the sonar will be recording data files
- Turn on the use of live data
- Close and restart Sonarcal for these changes to take effect
- Repeat for multiple beams:
- Move the beam line and range rings to select the beam and ranges
- Locate the sphere on-axis of a beam using the sphere amplitude plots to assist
- Tick the
on-axisbox when the sphere on-axis - Monitor the results in the Results dialog box
- Untick the
on-axisbox when sufficient data have been collected for the beam
Every time that the on-axis box is unticked all calibration results are saved to a backup file. The results can also be exported at any time using the Save button on the results dialog box - you will be prompted for a directory and filename for saving.
The beam being calibrated is highlighted in orange in the results dialog box and the beam line on the polar plot can not be moved while calibrating.