Application Tips and Tricks

Scan From Above

This is to illustrate the benefit of scanning from above a target. The basic idea is to get up above the bottom and angle the sonar downward slightly. The benefit is that objects projecting above the bottom cast an "acoustic shadow" behind them which tends to highlight them on the sonar image and gives an indication of their height.

This is true for any imaging sonar including side-scan sonars, multibeam sonars, and indeed also for the Omniscan 450 FS sonar.

Here is an image from SonarView showing a sunken boat. You can clearly see the shadow behind the barge. The sonar was about 15 meters above the bottom when this data was taken.