BioBase’s primary strength is its power as an automated processing engine delivering high quality geospatial data layers on aquatic habitats with very little user input outside of the physical effort to drive a boat and passively log sonar over an area of interest. In addition to the online analysis tools within BioBase like the polygon tool and automated statistical reports, users can export raw depth, vegetation, and bottom hardness data along their track, in X,Y,Z grid format, Google Earth imagery, Lowrance or Simrad Charts, AND NOW ESRI SHAPEFILES OF DEPTH CONTOURS! This feature has been in high demand for survey companies and governments who require detailed water volume analysis for aquatic habitat and fisheries management. Below we walk you through some helpful tips about the feature and how to use it.
When viewing an EcoSound trip or merge of interest, select Export Data – Depth Shapefiles
Example from a big lake:
If the trip or merge you are exporting covers more than approximately 500 m in any one direction, you will see multiple folders in the exported .zip file. For speed and performance, BioBase processes outputs in “blocks.”Example of exported shapefile blocks in Lake Tohopekaliga; a 74 sq. km lake in Florida. Outputs were viewed in the open source GIS program QGIS. NOTE: shapefile exports do not come with a projection and are in the WGS 84 global coordinate system (CRS 4326)
Example from a small pond:
5.8 acre (24,281 sq. m) pond as viewed in BioBaseExported 1ft contours. In this example, exports are completely contained within one block. The user can control whether contours are in imperial or metric, but the values are always stored in metric (e.g., 1ft contour is a value of 0.3048 in the GIS attribute table)Depth Areas as polygons are also bundled into the zipped export. This will allow the user to carry out detailed water volume analysis as a function of depth with fewer post-processing steps than were originally required when data was only exportable as points.
BioBase continues its mission to deliver water and fisheries resource professionals high value data products in the hopes that you can focus less of your efforts on making maps and more on the important tasks of research and conservation.
