Vessel Installation


This file holds the vessel installation information, such as distances from the reference point to the sonar head(s), the positioning sensor(s), etc. The OMG sign convention is to use: All installation/mount angles are measured using the right hand rule with the above axes, i.e.: The waterline and the reference point are related through the measurement of the waterline's z-ordinate. Since the z-axis is positive down, the waterline's z-ordinate would be positive when it is below the reference point and would be negative if it was above the reference point. The draft of the sonar head(s) is computed as the sonar head's z-ordinate minus the waterline's z-ordinate.

All of the above information is stored along with each survey line file (.merged) in a .param file, e.g. 0039.merged would have 0039.param. Sonar head 1 would have X,Y,Z distances recorded in the S1X, S1Y, S1Z fields, respectively. The roll, pitch and heading mount angles for sonar head 1 would be stored in S1R, S1P, S1H, respectively. The waterline's z-ordinate is recorded in the WLZ field. The same notation is used to store the positioning antenna's position with respect to the reference point (in this case, P1X, P1Y, P1Z).

An example .param file is shown below. In this example, a RESON 8150 sonar has the distances and mount angles for the transmitter and receiver (S1 and S2) recorded. The reference point is at the waterline, so WLZ=0. The navigation as logged is reported at the reference point, as such we do not enter the distances from the GPS antenna to the reference point (enter zeroes instead).


	WLZ=0.00
	S1X=17.886
	S1Y=-0.280
	S1Z=4.818
	S1H=0.00
	S1R=0.10
	S1P=-1.725
	S2X=16.486
	S2Y=0.000
	S2Z=4.500
	S2H=0.00
	S2R=0.01
	S2P=-1.17
	P1Z=0.00
	P1X=0.00
	P1Y=0.00

Last modified by J. Beaudoin, October 28th, 2005