Click the button on the Bathymetry Toolbar or select the Automatic Raw File Import action from the Sourcemenu.
What it Does
The dialog enables Qimera to automatically import and process sonar files to extend a Dynamic Surface during live survey operations.
General Description
Qimera can be part of a "live" acquisition environment to automatically process raw sonar files and append them to a growing Dynamic Surface. Simply create an empty Qimera project, launch the Automatic Import dialog as shown above, and complete the required entries.
Use the Directory to Monitor selector to designate the folder to watch where your live data is expected to appear.
Set the Import File Afterfield to tell Qimera how long to monitor a file size for changes before adding it to the project. In other words, a file will not be imported unless its file size has remained fixed in size for at least this amount of time.
Use the File Copy option to automatically copy the raw sonar file into the Qimera project before processing. If you are running on a laptop connected to the network, this will allow you to leave the survey vessel with an intact Qimera project that you can continue to work with remotely. Raw sonar files will be copied to the ~myproject/Sources folder prior to being imported.
Use the Dynamic Surface to Append to combo box to select which Dynamic Surface to automatically append newly processed lines. If you don't specify a grid, you will be prompted to define the grid details when you click OK. This is the same experience you have when creating a Dynamic Surface from files in your project using the Bathy Toolbar.
The Vessel Assignment works the same as the Add Raw Sonar Files dialog in that you can specify a template configuration file that will be used to override the vessel setup parameters when the lines are loaded. See the section on Vessel Assignment in the Add Raw Sonar Files Dialog section of the reference manual to see how to use this feature.
The File Type tells Qimera Live the file extensions to look for in the monitored folder. Supported file type are DB, QPD, ALL, KMALL, S7K, GSF, JSF, HSE, and HSX. The chosen file type will also determine which sections of the dialog are required. If not required, they will either be disabled or hidden.
The Coordinate System of the imported data should be entered for file types other than DB and QPD.
Custom Blocking can be turned on and configured using the Settings button. This allows you to create 2 blocking templates for up to 2 heads that will override any blocking performed during acquisition. For example, if your online QINSy system had angle blocking set to +/- 70 degrees so that you could see hazards on your next pass, but your delivery requires +/-60 degrees of coverage in the final product. You can have Qimera override the QINSy blocking to ensure that the Dynamic Surface being built has the proper coverage. See the Processing Settings Dialog section on blocking for more information.
When the automatic raw file importer is running, the icon on the Bathymetry Toolbar will animate and the Qimera Status Bar will indicate that Auto Import is on. Hovering the mouse over the indicator in the status bar will show the directory that is being monitored in a tooltip. To turn off Automatic Import, simply click the button in the toolbar or the action in the menu.
Wait Time
You should test Automatic Import with any new acquisition system to determine the most appropriate Wait Time. As long as a file is continuing to grow in size, Qimera will not add it to the project. Some acquisition systems may buffer their file writing so testing this is important to verify that you are indeed getting a complete file.
QINSy
Qimera will not allow you to open an active QINSy project. You must create a separate project for Qimera and monitor the database folder of the QINSy project to prevent other metadata collisions in the project. Additionally, you can configure QINSy to copy files to an alternate directory at end-of-line. You can then have Qimera monitor this directory for additional source safety.
