Pool mapping test run

In the past week Tyler and I mapped the pool as a test run before we take off for Malta (12 days to go!!). We drove the ROV around and took SONAR data at 5 or 6 spots along the bottom of the pool, and another 5 readings 1 meter from the bottom. We grabbed Billy's software and put the scans together to make a mosaic and a map of the pool.

The image to the left is the SONAR mosaic. This is a dry copy/paste of all of the SONAR scans after being cropped and rotated in an image processor. The 6 spots in the middle of the image are noise around the location that the scan was taken from. When the SONAR map is made all of this noise gets cut out.

The next image is the SONAR map that was generated using Billy's software. After creating special files that contain information on the bearing, depth, and time that a SONAR reading was taken, a scan can be loaded in. Then we load in a second scan, and a particle filter is used to converge the two scans. This can be done with different SONAR scans until a complete map is generated. Since this was the first set of SONAR data that Tyler and I took, we did not have the gain up high enough to fill in all of the holes around the pool. This makes Jeff's hole filling algorithm work a bit harder to produce a final map a little further down the line.

This is the method that we will use in Malta to produce our cistern maps. After the map gets generated, Jeff runs his hole filling algorithm and the map file will get passed to Tim and Tyler. They will add textures taken from the GoPro cameras strapped to the ROV. After that, the file gets passed to Brent who will be modifying it to include salinity and temperature visualizations. The map will finally get passed to me, and I will upload the mesh into Unity3D to create a 3D version that can be rotated, translated, and scaled by the viewer. This file will be embedded into an online frame, and anybody that wants to will be able to view our data!

More to come soon!