New Versions of Bathy DataBASE, HIPS and SIPS Released

With HIPS and SIPS and the Bathy DataBASE (BDB) suites of products being closely aligned, the BDB 4.3 release follows hot on the heels of HIPS and SIPS 10.2. These product lines now share a common core promoting tighter data interoperability. The 4.3 release of BDB now includes import and export for the generic Lidar format LAS 1.4. This is an important step in facilitating Lidar and laser scanning workflows and downstream data analysis. BDB 4.3 also supports the creation and management of Variable Resolution (VR) Surfaces.

This capability allows for continuous model creation, which can be contoured in a single pass. The Process Designer is included in this release, allowing workflows to be scripted and automated. This brings efficiency gains for common operations. The 3D window has been enhanced with new vector feature digitising and draping capabilities, which are useful for target picking on point cloud datasets.

Enhanced Lidar Support

This update to the 10.0 release of HIPS and SIPS builds on the idea of extracting more information from multibeam data. Multiple sonar detections from both Kongsberg and Teledyne sensors are supported. This capability can highlight additional contacts present within the water column, which may require closer investigation, building on water column imagery work previously completed. More backscatter upgrades have been added to SIPS in the release including support for both Kongsberg and Teledyne time series data that can result in a sharper seafloor image. This can be further enhanced for Teledyne sensors through the normalised backscatter.

Volume and Other Computations

Those involved in multibeam surveys in Ports and Waterways will benefit from the inclusion of the Engineering and Analysis Module (EAM) as a add-on to the HIPSpackage. The EAM module allows to perform volume computations for dredging from within the HIPS application and other specialised computations related to port operations. This provides a more streamlined workflow and removes the need to switch between applications.