Breaking Down the Barriers to Acoustic Data Processing: SonarData Echoview

                       Ian R. Higginbottom and Timothy J. Pauly

                   SonarData GPO Box 1387, Hobart, 7001, Australia
                 email: SonarData@verdant.com.au, fax +613 6234 1822

     A significant barrier to  the wide spread adoption of acoustic methods  for stock 
assessment  is  the  complexity of  echosounder  and  data  processing  technologies.   
Analysis of  data from  the powerful  Simrad EK500,  for example, has  required the 
scientist to master  arcane UNIX operating systems and/or to  use inflexible software 
with poor user interfaces.   New software, SonarData Echoview, harnesses the power 
of the modern PC and the easy to use Windows 95/NT operating systems  to provide 
a powerful, elegant and flexible post-processing (and data logging) package.
     Echoview provides: zooming and  scrolling functions to see data at  any level of 
detail;  data quality  tools to  flag user-defined  areas as  "bad data",  powerful echo 
integration tools  and background  noise removal.  When logging  Simrad EK500s  all 
data analysis  functions are  available in real  time and echograms  can be  displayed 
remotely via Ethernet.
     The key features  of Echoview will be  demonstrated using data logged  from a 
fishing boat echosounder  with a SonarData EchoListener during a  project to develop 
a  fisheries  dependent  acoustic abundance  index.  The  dollar  cost  (software  and 
hardware), time  cost (installation,  maintenance, learning) and  performance of  UNIX 
workstations and PCs  will be compared to demonstrate the  advantages of PC based 
data-processing systems.