Height Offset - 23

Description

Driver with user-interface, to allow the user to make corrections on the current tide.
This is useful in scenarios where the tide is unreliable, e.g. because it is predicted or when operating in large open waters where weather and atmospheric conditions are affecting the current sea-state.
It allows dredgers to work with accurate design models in real-time by making on-the-fly corrections to the (unreliable) tide.

Driver Information

Driver	Height Offset	Interface Type	None	Driver Class Type	Freebase
UTC Driver	No	Input / Output	None	Executable	DrvQPSFreeBaseUI.exe
Related Systems	Height Offset - 23 Miscellaneous System
Related Pages

Decoding Notes

The driver will use data from another generic observation, or from manually entered data (the most likely scenario).

The published tide offset goes as generic observation into the Qinsy system, and can be presented using the standard Qinsy displays, and will be logged in a recorded database.

But more important, it can be selected in the Controller's Computation setup as extra tide setup parameter. See the 41309032 paragraph for more information.

Database Setup

Add a Miscellaneous System to your template setup and select driver "Height Offset". There are no I/O parameters to enter.

On the second wizard page, add one Generic observation and set the Slot Id (case-sensitive) to "TIDE_OFF".
It is recommended to select the Slot Id from the combo box. The observation name will then be set automatically, but you are free to change this name.

On the last wizard page, leave the C-O settings at their defaults, unless you have legitimate reasons to change them

Online

The driver has user-interface, and therefore will always be present in the Windows taskbar.

When going on-line for the first time, locate the driver and change the Setup parameters:

Driver Layout Menu: Setup

	HEIGHT OFFSET SETUP
Tide Offset Observation:	Select from the list [Manual], or one of the available generic observations as found in the template setup. * When set to [Manual], you can enter the required tide offset value immediately in the edit field below or use the quick change buttons in the Results menu. * The selection of a generic observation is of course only useful when that observation (e.g. from VOCAM system) represents a valid tide offset.
	MANUAL SETUP
Tide Offset:	Enter the manual tide offset value. You may also use the quick change buttons in the Results menu to modify this value on-the-fly.
Quick Change Buttons:	Show or hide the quick change buttons in the Results menu. Hiding the buttons may be useful to prevent making changes by mistake.
Step Size:	This value (default 0.05) will be used when changing the manual tide offset value using the quick change buttons.

Driver Layout Menu: Results

	RESULT
Observation Value:	Here you will see the current value for the last update of the selected tide offset observation: [Observation Update Time] Value Value will be RED when the observation is not valid or not updated for more than 5 seconds. When this happens, the age value is also displayed between brackets.
Increase:	Quick Change Button. Use this button to quickly increase the manual tide offset value with the given step size value.
Decrease:	Quick Change Button Use this button to quickly decrease the manual tide offset value with the given step size value.
Tide Offset:	The final tide offset value that will be published. This observation can be selected in the Controller's Computation Setup, Object Height, Tide Parameters as Additional Tide Offset. See 41309032.

Driver Layout Menu: Options

Lock Settings:

You may lock the user-interface settings, in order to prevent making changes by mistake. Note that the Quick Change buttons can always be selected, even if all other settings are locked.

Show Tooltips:

When enabled, additional information about the setting is shown in a tool-tip when the mouse cursor is hovering above it. Disable it when you find this annoying.

Update Rate:

Select the update rate (0.2Hz - 5Hz) for the final countdown observation (default 1 Hz), or

[None]: No tide offset observation will be calculated and published.
[When Observation Triggers]: Same update rate as the selected tide offset observation. Note that when the tide offset observation is set to manual, the trigger will happen when the manual value changes.

Controller Setup

Whether the tide offset value will be used or not, depends on the on-line or replay computation settings:

Highlight your vessel object in the Controller's Computation Setup, select the Height tab page, and select the Additional Tide Offset observation in the Tide Parameters.

The Additional Tide Offset selection is by default set to 'Disabled'. As soon as you select your observation and use the Apply or OK button, the tide offset value will be added to the original tide value.
This has immediate effect on the actual water level.

You can monitor the change in the actual tide value with the Height Aiding driver:

Processing

When you do your survey and tide is applied, you can not tell afterwards whether the applied tide value was a combination of the tide offset value or not.
However, you can always replay your recorded databases and change the Tide Parameters in the Computation Setup.

Registry Options

The online settings are saved in the registry, with part of the registry key the name of the system. This means that when you change the system name in the template setup, all online settings have to be selected again.
As explained in the Online Setup tab page, information in the Results menu will be displayed in a red color when the age of the data exceeds five seconds.
This age limit (default 5 seconds) may be changed by modifying the registry key:
'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\QPS\Qinsy\8.0\Drivers\DrvQPSFreeBaseUI\Height Offset - <YourDriverName>\Settings\ MaxAge'.