Hydrographic Survey - oceanographic time series data

The presentation of time series data, typically the result of long term deployments of recording instruments, is mainly concerned with principal physical parameters such as currents, waves, tides, weather and water quality information.

The Clydeside Surveys data processing package typically stores these data as direct access files with each data point associated with a quality flag which stores information on the data point such as valid data; interpolated value; or erroneous data. In the latter case the data would be masked such that it would not be used in subsequent data processing tasks.

Data can be input to the data processing package as ASCII files or as raw data from oceanographic instruments (Aanderaa sensors, Interocean S4 current meters, RDI Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers, Braystoke current meters, Waveriders etc.). Standard processing packages include harmonic analysis, tidal or other digital filtering and spectral analysis.

Data can be presented as:

Summary Statistics
Time Series Plots
Scatter Plots
Rose Diagrams
Progressive Vector Plots
ASCII Listings

The data presentation packages are written to facilitate the merging and comparison of different data sets. For example tidal data, wave data and current meter data from three separate files can be presented on a single plot without the need to first merge the data into a single file. Each individual file contains time information, these data sets are used to ensure that the data is plotted to the correct position on the final plot eliminating the possibility of mismatched time series.

The program suite is under constant review and development of unusual or non standard types of data presentation can be incorporated to suit client requirements.

The collection and processing of survey data is one of the key areas of expertise within Clydeside Surveys and its associate companies. The experience gained in developing the software techniques to present oceanographic and environmental data has also been applied in the development of software based real time data collection and display systems.