We recently sent out a mailer to our subscribers letting them know about the portability solutions that we have come up with. Within minutes we received photos and details from many of our customers about how some they have used a little ingenuity to mount their Lowrance units on unique water craft. Below we have a photo gallery of images that could help you design your own portable setup. Of primary importance, however, is a mount that minimizes cavitation (air bubbles) directly under the transducer (e.g., surface noise) and maintaining a correct angle on the transducer. See recent blogs on this topic. The preferable solution is to permanently mount separate transducers following DIY guidance like shown here on each survey craft and just move the Lowrance Elite or HDS display from boat to boat. But if the job calls for a fully portable mount, we can help!
Category: hardware
Replay, Review, and Re-record Your Trip with the Lowrance Simulator Tool
Updated June 2023
Have you ever wanted to view your BioBase EcoSound trip in even more detail? The trip simulator feature available on Lowrance sonar units is a great way to take a closer look at your trip for troubleshooting, or just to identify areas of interest for your next field day. First thing we recommend you do is to purchase an AC to DC power converter so you can run your Lowrance on a work bench or desk. That’s a lot easier than running off of a 12 volt battery that you’ll have to continually recharge. Once you get your unit’s power supply, we’ll walk you through how to view and replay your previously recorded sonar log in simulator on your Lowrance (it works on Simrad too).
Continue reading “Replay, Review, and Re-record Your Trip with the Lowrance Simulator Tool”
Choosing and Installing your Lowrance Transducer
The transducer connected to your Lowrance echosounder plays a critical role in producing quality map outputs. Fortunately, the mechanics of producing quality hydroacoustic signals has been honed by 57 years of research and development by engineers at Lowrance. Still, users play an important role in optimizing outputs by selecting the correct transducer and installing it correctly
Continue reading “Choosing and Installing your Lowrance Transducer”
Platypus Offers New Opportunites in Pond Mapping
Researchers Paul and John Scerri and their team at Carnegie Mellon University have developed an autonomous vehicle called Platypus that can be used for a wide variety of aquatic applications. One application we see customers struggle with is mapping small ponds.
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| Platypus getting fitted with a Lowrance HDS and transducer |
Recently, the Platypus development group teamed up with Tim Wood at Aquatic Edge Consulting and Contour Innovations to test the use of a Platypus for sonar data collection and bathymetric and vegetation mapping of a pond. They rigged up the autonomous vehicle with a small Lowrance HDS 5 and sent it into the waterbody.
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| Getting the data collection process going and testing while on the water |
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| A close-up view of Platypus |
They quickly acquired the data set recorded to their SD card, uploaded the .SL2 files to their account at http://www.BioBase.com and within minutes all of their files were done processing and could be merged into a full map. The pond map output looks great!
You can check out a video of the operation here: Platypus in action
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| Platypus gathering sonar data for BioBase |
Customers were happy, no one got wet, and the results speak for themselves. Great job guys!
If you have an innovative way of collecting data for processing with BioBase, let us know and we’d be happy to help!
Is StructureScan worth it? You be the judge
Debating whether it’s worth the upgrade to the new HDS7 Gen2 Touch StructureScan bundle? Outside of the bigger screen and more intuitive touch technology than its older generation HDS5 sibling, the imagery produced by StructureScan should be reason enough!
Below are the same areas of a lake in Minnesota using the traditional 200 khz signal (top) and the 455 khz DownScan add-on (bottom). A school of fish hovering over Eurasian watermilfoil plants is clearly resolved in the bottom image. The wider cone angle of the traditional signal cannot adequately resolve these minute features. BioBase leverages both signals to produce accurate map data sets and reproduce spatially explicit imagery for plant cover typing. Contact us if you would like to know more about HDS features or are interested in purchasing a unit
Lake Mapping and 800 kHz DownScan
BioBase Now Offering 800 kHz DownScan in its dynamic Trip Replay feature.
Trip Replay is taking a leap forward with the new option to view your data using the 800 kHz DownScan option when recording with the StructureScan™ add-on. Anyone that has been uploading data gathered with StructureScan™, by logging all channels, can now view past and future trips with this new feature.
You may have seen our earlier posts about the BioBase Trip Relay feature. Your raw data collection is automatically processed by our powerful cloud servers and fully mapped with kriging algorithms and other geo-statistical considerations. Once processed, you can then replay the entire trip, watch your boat travel along your transects, and ground truth the % BV heat map with the water column cross section (on the right side of the image above). This feature allows our customers to verify every trip output for accuracy and provide objective evidence for anyone that questions your aquatic vegetation maps!
The power and accuracy of the Lowrance™ HDS StructureScan™ allows us to offer a new and amazing cross-section view (DownScan) of the water column for each trip in the Trip Replay feature. As you can see from the images below, this feature provides amazing views of bottom and vegetation. It is even possible to notice changes in vegetation types or habitat cover type under your boat. With our waypoint feature, you can identify vegetation transition zones and areas of interest for typing and delineation.
Please let us know if you would like to add StructureScan™ to your current data collection hardware. Although not mandatory for using BioBase, this option can be added to any HDS™ system at any time for great views underwater. For details on using or recording StructureScan™ please request a copy of our Standard Operating Procedures.
Another great feature added to the powerful BioBase System.
ABOUT BIOBASE
BioBase was engineered to provide automated cloud based GIS, aquatic vegetation mapping and historical trend tools for aquatic habitat analysis. BioBase leverages log file formats recorded to SD cards using today’s Lowrance™ brand depth finders and chart plotters. Data you collect while on the water is uploaded to an online account where it is processed by our servers automatically. We rely on automation to make vegetation mapping cost effective by reducing the technical skills, staff, and hours to produce vegetation abundance maps from raw sonar collection. With the human element gone, you get accurate and objective mapping at lightening speeds!
Check out more anytime at www.BioBaseMaps.com and on our BioBase BLOG