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.
Go To Tools – Export Options and click “Export Shapefiles”
Example from a small lake:
The D_Areas shapefile contains many overlapping, redundant polygon features that need to be deleted. To determine which rows to delete, calculate the difference between the max and min elevation values and only keep the rows with a difference of 1 foot (0.3048 meters).
For a complete video tutorial on working with D_Areas shapefiles please visit our YouTube channel.
Shapefiles for vegetation and bottom hardness layers are also available for export as 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.