SINGLE BEAM SURVEY USING EIVA SOFTWARE

Amirul Izam Fauzi, Othman Mohd Yusof, Eddy Junaidy Emran

Centre of Studies for Surveying Science and Geomatics, Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450

Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, MALAYSIA.

Email: izam930619@gmail.com

Abstract -Nowadays there is a lot of processing software that

are available in the market to process the hydrography data. The

advantages of using these processing software are that it will help

to collect and process the data faster compared to the conventional

method. In order to differentiate the variety of software that

available in the market is the way of the software being operated.

The aim of this study is to conduct a bathymetric survey using a

single beam echo sounder and process the data using EIVA

software. There are a few stages in order to complete the study.

The first stage is the project preparation such as calculate and

configure the sounding line, configure the vessel shape, geodetic

parameter, and all the system configuration for the navigation. All

the system configuration will be set up using NaviPac Software.

Next, for the second stage is the data collection at the site. The site

area for this study is located near the North Port, Klang and the

dimension of the survey is 160m x 200m. Lastly, for the third stage

is the data processing. The data will be processed using NaviEdit

and NaviModel software and the bathymetric chart will be

processed using NaviPlot software. The result of this study is the

depth and contour of the survey area. Based on the results of this

study, a standard procedure for the acquisition of the data until

the production of bathymetric chart of the survey area was

developed. As a conclusion, the objective of this study has been

achieved which is to plan the procedure to collect and set up the

data using NaviPac. The next objective is to conduct a bathymetric

survey of the site and the last objective is to process the survey data

using NaviEdit and NaviModel and produce a bathymetric chart

of the study area by using NaviPlot. EIVA software is suitable to

be used to collect and process the data as it is easy to use and easy

to handle.

Index Term – Bathymetric Survey, Echo Sounder, EIVA

Software, NaviPac, NaviEdit, NaviModel, NaviPlot.

I. INTRODUCTION

Hydrographic surveying is the study of measuring and showing the

specification and structure of the seabed classification with the land

mass and dynamic features of the sea (International Hydrographic

Organization, 2005). The advancement of marine activities in

Malaysia had increased every year. Besides used for nautical chart, the

hydrographic surveying data also being used in another application

such as marine engineering, ocean habitat studies, pipeline inspection,

determination of maritime boundary and many more. Nowadays there

are a lot of software that have been in the market to process the

hydrography data. This software will help to collect and process the

data faster as compared with the conventional method. In order to

differentiate the variety of software that available in the market is the

way of the software being operated and the easiest to handle the

software. For example, NaviSuite is one of the products under EIVA

software, a complete software toolbox for subsea survey and

engineering.

It is marine software and a system organization in designing and

assembly software and integrated system solutions for hydrographic

surveying. EIVA headquarters consists of one building with an area of

3500 square meters. The headquarters are located close to Aarhus. Its

building has provided modern, production line, calibration laboratory,

electronic workshop and a housing software development with the

purpose-built facilities. This company consists of more than 60

workers, including a team that specialist in developing software for

marine application, starting from the navigation to data collection then

to post-processing data and lastly production of charts. All of these

people have a solid background education and a wide experience in

doing the programming. Some of the workers in the company have

worked in many years, thus has a wide range of experience with the

product software and its application (Herskind, 2006).

In 1978, EIVA was founded and at the early stage of its foundation, it

provided the services, equipment and sensor for the exploration of oil

and gas industry. In 1982, EIVA begin to develop by introducing

NaviPac integrated navigation software. Then, EIVA has gone a rapid

development to become a well-known offshore company until todays

with its main objectives is the integrated software solution system to

be use in hydrographic surveying, construction of the offshore and

work inspection, seafloor mapping, geophysical surveying,

oceanographic research and many more

For the development of the software, EIVA has made a standard tool

for the design and specification, management and the documentation.

The Bureau Veritas Quality Institute (BVQI) had acknowledged EIVA

to ISO 9001:2008 of the management quality system. The quality

certification part is based on the object oriented methods and the

standard waterfall models of the development procedures. The main

objective of EIVA is to be the main provider for the offshore software

that are related to the hydrographic surveying (Herskind, 2006). This

can be seen from the past, experience that this is the best approach to

make sure that a close interactive process with the end user. By this

way, the interface of the man machine of the software as well as the

future features can be in conjunction and the user can get a more

satisfying and user friendliness result.

The product of EIVA software contains of a software for all types of

offshore surveying starting from the navigation to the data collection,

to the post-processing of the data and lastly to the production of the

sheets. The modules in the EIVA are NaviPac for the Integrated

Navigation, NaviScan for the Multi beam and Sonar Data collection,

NaviEdit for Editing Survey Data, NaviModel for the Digital Terrain

Mapping and lastly NaviPlot for the Production and Charting of Fair

Sheet (Herskind, 2006). Other than this module, EIVA also has

optional modules software that is available for certain purpose such as

cable laying, pipeline inspection and barge/tug management. All the

modules form a seamless solution of software that allows the data to

transfer from a module to another module. The capability of the

interface that contains a selectable export and import of the data

formats make each module to be used in stand-alone interface mode

with the third party software. The entire software suite is very famous

in the offshore market and it is still under a continuous research in

order to fulfil the requirement of the new industry which is developed

every day.

II. AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of the study is to conduct a bathymetry survey using single

beam echo sounder to collect the bathymetry data and to process the

data by using EIVA software. In order to achieve the aim, the

following objectives need to be fulfilled:-

a. To plan the procedure to collect and set up the data using NaviPac

module under EIVA software.

b. To conduct a bathymetric survey at the site

c. To process the survey data using NaviEdit and NaviModel and

produce a bathymetric plan of the study area by using NaviPlot

III. METHODOLOGY

The methodology can be divided into five phases, namely phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, phase 4 and phase 5. Phase 1 is about preliminary work which includes doing a research about bathymetric mapping, software that will be used and the study area together with the problem identification. Phase 2 is about preparation stages such as installation of the EIVA software and configuration of the software and the equipment while phase 3 is a data acquisition by conducting bathymetric survey using NaviPac. Phase 4 is the data processing by using NaviEdit and NaviModel and lastly phase 5 is the result and analysis section by producing bathymetric plan using NaviPlot. Figure 1 illustrates research methodology for this study.

3.1 Site Study

The site of this study is located at latitude 3° 1'40.51"N and longitude

101°20'18.37"E. The size of the study area for the bathymetric survey

is about 160 metres by 200 metres. The study area is situated at North

Port,Klang. Figure 2 shows the location of the study area.

Figure 2. Location of the Study Area (Google, 2015)

3.2 NaviPac Configuration

When the user open the NaviPac Configuration, the main window will

appear as shown in Figure 3. This program will automatically loads the

setup file (eg \eiva\navipac\db\gensetup.db). Next, the file name will

displayed in the Setup File fields. The user can edit any setup file with

NaviPac Configuration, but in order to use it for navigation, the file

must be named to gensetup.db. The file header are displaying the

information about the most recently setting that is setup by the user

Figure 1. Research Methodology

such as modification time, database version, information of the server,

entities number, information about the dongle, NaviPac mode and all

these items cannot be edited as it only display the information on the

panel.

The Instruments are displaying and control/editing all the instrument

that have in the list. The setup configuration for the Instruments will

only setup the Surface Navigation for tracking system, Gyro and

compass for the vessel and also the dynamic objects, Data Acquisition

which is echo sounders and Offsets on the vessel or dynamic objects.

For surface navigation, a GPS (NMEA) types is chosen. For the gyro,

NMEA gyro is chosen but it will only be setup as calculated mode only

because there is no gyro instrument is used in this study. Next, for the

data acquisition, NMEA 183 Depth is selected and lastly the offset for

the GPS and the Echo sounder also must be defined.

The Geodesy are displaying and control/editing the selected geodesy.

Under Geodesy configuration, this survey will used the projection

system of Rectified Skew Orthophomic Malaysia (MRSO) because it

is surveyed in Peninsular Malaysia. The ellipsoid used is Everest 1948

West Malaysia and the Datum Shifts used is from WGS84 to Kertau

Datum. These parameters are needed in order to transform the position

between the two datum’s which is WGS84 and Kertau Datum. EIVA

Preliminary Work (Phase 1)

• Doing research about bathymetry mapping.

• Study about the software used for data collection.

• Selection of study area and problem identification.

Preparation (Phase 2)

• Find image satellite of study area (North Port) from googleimage

• Installation of EIVA software

• Configuration of the software and the equipment

Site Collection (Phase 3)

• Conduct bathymetric survey using NaviPac

Data Processing (Phase 4)

• Process the data using NaviEdit and NaviModel

Result and Analysis (Phase 5)

• Produce bathymetry plan using NaviPlot

• Analysis of the result.

uses 7-parameter datum shifts that required 3-translation, 3-rotation,

and a scale factors. ITRF is an optional addition datum shift. The scale

used is in metric. The geodetic parameter for Malaysia is not available

in the list menu in NaviPac software. The user can entered the

parameter value by manually or by updating the geodetic parameter in

the EIVA database. If the geodetic parameter have been updated in the

database, the user can choose from the list menu available in the

geodesy setting.

The Objects are displaying and control/editing the objects used in this

setup. Next, under Objects configuration, the object use the vessel only

and the user do not need to setup again at the Object because it will

follow the setup at the Instruments. Lastly, the Warm Start are

displaying and control/editing of which modules the user want to

activate during navigation start up.

Figure 3. NaviPac Configuration System

3.3 Configuration of the vessel shape

The specification of the vessel must be specified before the survey can

be started. The vessel shape can be done in the Graphic Editor under

Tools which can be found on the window panel in NaviPac. The length

of the vessel is 7.32m and the width of the vessel is 1.68m. The vessel

shape is used online in the Helmsman’s Display to give the user an

idea about the vessel shape and the heading. The user can define the

shape manually or import a vessel shape from a previous project. The

vessel shape is defined as a series of X, and Y points. Start the drawing

by choosing Start Polygon with Fill and Edge. Then, entered the X and

Y coordinates for the first point, then move to second coordinate, and

for the next coordinate, choose a line in order to join all the lines.

When all the coordinate has finished entered, closed the drawing by

choosing End Polygon. The shape of the vessel can be viewed in

graphical view by referring to the figure 4.9. Next, save the file of the

vessel as shape file *.shp.

Figure 4. Report View of the Vessel

Figure 5. Graphical View of the Vessel

3.3 Configuration of the sounding line

Every survey is performed by using a pre-planned survey lines. The

survey lines can be generated on Helmsman’s Display. This survey

used a single line. A single lines are lines defined with a starting

coordinate and end with a coordinate. Then, a line is drawn between

the two coordinates. It can be a straight line or a curved line. The

starting line for this survey is 371500 mE and the end coordinate is

335200 mN. There is a total of 17 lines in this survey, but only 8 lines

will be surveyed. The fix interval of the line is 5m. The survey line

which also known as runline will be saved as *.rlx file in the folder

displayline on the database. Figure 4.10 shows the survey line of the

study area that had been configured.

Figure 6. The Survey Line of the Study Area

3.3 Equipment Installation

The transducer was installed accurately as possible in relation to other

survey system. If the transducer was mounted improperly on the

vessel, it will give a poor system operation result and the quality of the

data is cannot be accepted. If the transducer is installed temporarily, it

is often mounted at the over the side of the boat, but if the transducer

is installed permanently, it is often hull mounted on the boat. Figure 4.

shows that the transducer was installed over the portside of the vessel.

The transducer must be mounted on the boat as far as below the

waterline. But, if the “over the side” mounts are unprotected from the

wave action, the transducer must be mounted far enough below the

water surface in order to make sure it still properly submerged during

roll motions of the vessel. Besides that, the transducer also must be

installed as possible as close to the centre of gravity in order to reduce

the effect of roll and pitch. The ideal place to locate the transducer is

at the third or half of the length of the vessel that is measured from the

bow. To prevent the bubbles generated by the bow from passing over

the face of the unit, the transducer must be mounted far enough from

the bow and it also should be located far away from the source of noise

such as engine and propeller.

Figure 4. Installation of the transducer

IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

After data collection had been done, the data need to be process to

make the chart more beautiful as long as the data not interrupted too

much. The data that had been collected maybe not in good condition

cause by the big wave at the site and also the position of the vessel

which may not always constantly in right angle. The step to process

the single beam data is not as complicated as processing the multibeam

data. For a single beam data, the data need to go through the process

of removing the spike and also the process to smoothing the data.

From this data, it does not have too many spikes thus, it is not

necessary to undergo spike removing procedure and it just needs to go

through the process of smoothing the data. The data can be smoothed

in NaviEdit by inserting a suitable wave length to the data. It is

recommended to apply the lowest wavelength as possible as can in

order to maintain the quality of the data. The reason to smoothing the

data is that it is used to filter out a high frequency noise from the data.

If the wavelength is set too high, it might remove the important

features in the data set. The suitable wavelength applied to the data is

20 seconds wave length and after the smoothing is applied, the graph

of the depth data is smoother compared to the graph before the

smoothing process is applied.

Figure 7. Result before smoothing the data

Figure 8. Result after smoothing the data

4.1 Processing the Contour Line in NaviModel

In order to generate the contour line, the data from the NaviEdit must

be exported into ASCII (XYZ) file which is in *.xyz format. When the

data is successfully exported in *.xyz format, the data can be opened

in NaviModel for further processing. The NaviModel will create the

data into Digital Terrain Model so that the contour line can be created.

Figure 9. The Digital Terrain Model of the data

According to the Figure 7. Digital Terrain Model, the shallowest part

of the survey area is at 2.34m and the deepest part is at 5.45m and

mostly the depth of the area is around 4.8m. For shallower water

regions, it is important to have a knowledge of the seafloor depths for

the purpose of navigation and also as a warning hazards to shipping.

The survey area is quite safe for the vessel to pass by around it. Besides

that, mapping the ocean floor also important for the purpose of

offshore resource exploration and exploitation such as fisheries and

hazardous waste disposal. Before creating the contour, the outline

around the DTM must be created first so that the contour can be

generated just around the DTM area.

Figure 10. Creating Outline around the DTM

When the outline around the DTM is displayed, then the contour can

be started to generate. The contour is generated from one point to one

point. The Interval Minors of the contour is set to 0.5m and the Interval

Majors is set to 5m with the cell size factor is set to 1. A contour lines

is an imaginary lines that connecting the points of the same elevation

or depth. An interval contour is the predetermined difference between

two lines contour. A map that shows very close line of contour means

that the land is very steep. On the other hand, a map that has a wide

space between the lines contours means that it has a gentle slope. The

smaller the interval contour, the more capable the map can show the

finer features and also details of the land.

Figure 11(a). Generating the Contour Line

Figure 11(b). Generating the Contour Line

NaviModel also are capable to calculate the total area of the survey

area based on the outlines created along the DTM. By referring to the

figure 4.31, the total survey area that are calculated is 48441.927 meter

per square. Besides that, the other advantages of NaviModel also it can

calculate the volume of the survey area. By referring to the figure 4.32,

the volume above for the survey area is 2750.6 meter cube and the

volume below for the area is 16 558.9 meter cube. On top of that, the

user also can save as the contour data that have been processed in

various format such as Displayline *.dis, ESRI Shape *.shp, AutoCAD

*.dxf, XYZ *.xyz, Google Earth *.kml, Pipetracker *.pip, Digitized

line *.dig etc.

Figure 12. Total Area of the Survey Area

Figure 13. Total Volume of the Survey Area

After all procedure had completed, the contour data must be save as

*.nmc format so that it can be exported to the NaviPlot for producing

the chart.

4.2 Importing the data into NaviPlot

The bathymetric chart will be produced in A3 size with the dimension

of 420mm X 297mm. The size of the sheets must be setup first on the

NaviPlot. Then, on the main frame of the sheets, draw a new frame to

insert the data that had been exported earlier such as *.bpl, and *.nmc

file. The layout of the chart is prepared according to the standard

format. The scale of the plan is 1:1000 and the length from the first

point to the last point is about 200m. After the chart is finished, the file

of the chart can be exported to the AutoCAD format. The line of the

survey in the chart area will show the depth of the seabed to the chart

datum and this will help the vessel to identify the best route to pass by

in order to make sure the safety of the vessel.

Figure 14. Bathymetric Chart Produce by NaviPlot

V. DISCUSSIONS

5.1 Coordinate Frame Rotation in EIVA

When the setup of geodetic parameter had completed, it is a good

practice to test the parameters that had been setup using a known point

in both coordinate systems. A test option is included in the NaviPac

Online under Calculate WGS84. It will open a calculator interface to

calculate the conversion of positions between WGS 84 and the user

datum. The user will enter the coordinates that need to be converted

either as a grid coordinates or geographical coordinates. Refer to figure

13.

Figure 15. Coordinate Test in EIVA

EIVA software offer a different kind of datum shift methods. If the

Coordinate Frame Rotation given by the geodetic parameter is counter

clockwise, then an opposite sign must be applied on all the rotation

parameters. For example, the Coordinate Frame Rotation that is given

by PETRONAS shows that the datum shifts for the Rotation X and Y

are positive and the Rotation Z are negative and as stated earlier in

EIVA, the user must apply the opposite signs for the rotation

parameters so automatically the Rotation X and Y will become

negative and the Rotation Z will become positive. Table 1 shows the

difference setup between PETRONAS and EIVA. At the end of the

result, the coordinate conversion from WGS 84 to Kertau Datum in

EIVA is the same as the coordinate conversion from the documents

that have been used by PETRONAS and this approved that the survey

can be done by using this software.

Table 1. Difference Datum Transformation between PETRONAS and

EIVA

PARAMETER PETRONAS EIVA

Translation X +379.776 metres +379.776 metres

Translation X -775.384 metres -775.384 metres

Translation X +86.609 metres +86.609 metres

Rotation X +2.59674 seconds -2.59674 seconds

Rotation X +2.10213 seconds -2.10213 seconds

Rotation X -12.11377 seconds +12.11377

seconds

Scale +1.0 ppm +1.0 ppm

5.2 Verification of the data

From the bathymetric plan produced, the depth of the survey area

shown in the plan can be prove correct because the depth data is tally

for the highest depth and the lowest depth of the survey area when

viewed back in the NaviEdit, NaviModel and also NaviPlot. Figure

4.48 and Figure 4.49 shows the viewing of the highest and lowest depth

of the area. The highest depth that was recorded is 5.45 meters and the

lowest depth that was recorded is 2.34 meters.

Figure 16. Highest Depth of the Survey Area

Figure 15. Lowest Depth of the Survey Are

5.3 Limitation of the study

The limitation of this study is the echo sounder used in the survey is

limited to a single beam only. The data that is collected by a single

beam echo sounder is lower density of the data as compared to the

multibeam echo sounder. The results that is produced by a multibeam

echo sounder is more details as it will show the bottom contour, debris,

scour areas and other bottom conditions of the survey area such as

shipwreck. Besides that, the multibeam echo sounder also can provides

the sediment characterization of the survey area, and the data also have

a higher accuracy compare to single beam echo sounder. The method

to collect the data also is more effective in order to create a detailed 3-

dimensional models for the survey area such as river and lake bottoms

as it will collect a several soundings at once. This will reduce the

triangular interpolation between the data points because there are more

data compared to single beam data.

On the other hand, the mapping product that is produce by the

multibeam data also is better that mapping product from the single

beam data but this is not to justify that the data from the single beam

is not good because the data from the single beam also can give a great

picture of the survey area but a generalized one that is best for

hydraulic modelling, spotting a significant changes, and also for the

cutting precise cross sections. Meanwhile, the data from the multibeam

can provide all of that and even more.

VI. CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, EIVA software is a powerful tool that can be used in

hydrographic survey because it can provide a lot of things starting from

the data acquisition to the processing of the data and finally to the

production of the chart. EIVA can be categorized into two which is an

online software suite mainly for on-board data acquisition, quality

control, recording etc. and an offline processing suite mainly for the

purpose on-board and ashore data cleaning, data processing and

reporting. The online software suite is mainly based on NaviPac for

single beam data and NaviScan for multibeam data is basically meet

all the characteristic of online software that is required for online

marine activities no matter what type of task or the level of complexity

of the work.

NaviPac can provide the information about the navigation and

positioning calculations to support in any offshore works as well as

offshore engineering and also construction operations. Meanwhile,

NaviScan is used to acquire the data from all major sonars that have

on the market, including with other multibeam echo sounders, sonar

profiling and scanning, pipe trackers, side scan sonars etc. Besides

that, NaviPac and NaviScan also supports most sensors that are

available on the market.

This software has a flexible configuration together with intuitive user

interface that makes it easy to setup the geodetic parameters and also

to select a sensor interface from a pre-defined list of the sensor.

Besides that, the user also can alternatively through into a user-defined

generic driver. On top of that, the port setting is also easily available

for testing prior to the mission.

The offline packages can be divided into three main components that

related to each other at the level of post-processing. Basically,

NaviEdit is used for the initial editing of the raw data that was collected

during the online phase. Moreover, NaviEdit also provides a variety of

exporters that can be linked to NaviModel and NaviPlot. As an

alternative to the function of exporting, NaviEdit also can access and

load the data into the NaviEdit SQL database directly.

NaviModel is used as a tool to manipulate with the digital terrain

models (DTMs) either for single beam data or multibeam data. The

terrain modelling can be based on the Triangular Regular Network

(TRN) or on Triangular Irregular Network (TIN) algorithms. The data

that is exported from the NaviModel usually can be used for further

processing in NaviPlot.

NaviPlot is a fair sheet production software that gives the facilities for

the layout of the survey data. The layout chart manager in NaviPlot is

used to automate and thereby to make it easy for generation of multiple

plots as plot series that inherits a common layout of the single plot.

Besides that, NaviPlot also can supports exporting the current works

to a series of different plotting formats, such as AutoCAD format, PDF

format and S-57.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying Universiti Teknologi

MARA (UiTM), Department of Surveying Science and Geomatics, Dr.

Othman Mohd Yusof, Mr. Eddy Junaidy Emran and a special thanks to

who directly or indirectly involved in this study

REFERENCES

[1]. Google Inc. (2015). Google Earth. Retrieved April 2015,

from Google Earth: www.google earth.com

[2]. Herskind, P. (2006). Marine Software and Integrated

Systems Solutions. 2.

[3]. IHO. (2008). IHO Standards for Hydrographic Surveys. 5th

edition. Monaco: International Hydrographic Bureau.

[4]. EIVA User Manual