Wellington Prepares for Shallow Survey Event

‘Shallow survey' refers to surveying in water depths of less than 30 metres, generally around a country's coastline, and with particular focus on ports and harbours. Accurate shallow surveys are needed where it is critical to record unseen hazards that may pose a danger to shipping, other commercial enterprises and recreational users. The conference focuses on current issues and latest developments associated with surveying in shallow water. Technical presenters are acknowledged worldwide as experts in their field of research and work.

For New Zealand, accurate shallow surveys are critical as close to 99% of its trade is carried by ship. This year's conference is hosted by LINZ (Land Information New Zealand), GNS Science and NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research).

The conference centrepiece is the ‘Common Dataset', a comparative study of data collected in a shallow water test area. For this conference that test area is Wellington Harbour, right outside the conference venue. Equipment manufacturers collect data using their latest technology and make that data available to conference delegates. Analysis of the Common Dataset highlights the relative merits and effectiveness of various shallow water surveying techniques and products.  A session on the Common Dataset will be held from 1.00 to 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 21st February.

Keynote, session and workshop speakers/presenters come from all over the globe. New Zealand contributors are: Bryan Davy and Cornel de Ronde, GNS Science; Phil Barnes, Geoffroy Lamarche, Arne Pallentin and Judi Hewitt NIWA; Stuart Caie, Richard Murcott, Adam Greenland and Matt Amos, LINZ; Matt Wray, Royal New Zealand Navy and Alexandre Schimel, MetOcean. International speakers include Larry Mayer, University of New Hampshire; Xavier Lurton, Ifremer; Robert Ward, International Hydrographic Bureau; and Lindsay Gee, QPS.

Rob Carsley, Product Development Manager from CodaOctopus Products in Edinburgh, UK, will present a paper on the benefits of utilising state of the art software solutions for processing and interpreting shallow seismic data. The integration of GIS functionality into the next generation of software products for processing, interpretation and reporting of shallow seismic datasets can increase efficiency and productivity. Fusing multi-source datasets (mutlibeam bathymetry, sidescan sonar, magnetometer, video imagery, geotechnics etc) and utilising fast-access database technology, shallow seismic data can be processed and interpreted faster and more accurately than ever before. Rob will present the results of an independent comparison between performing a interpretation on the Applied Acoustics Wellington Common Data Set using two different software packages: the long-standing industry work-horse Coda GeoSurvey Geokit Seismic, and CodaOctopus’ latest product, Coda Survey Engine Seimsic+, including a quantitative analysis of the productivity improvements at different stages of the process. Gareth Simpson, CodaOctopus - 16/02/2012 - 16:53