Sonar target enhancement
AssigneeJohnson Outdoors Inc.
InventorWilliam Fulton Bates, IV
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A sonar target enhancement system and method are provided for consumer fish finder live sonar image processing. The system and method identify and enhance the visualization of specific targets, such as fish and lures, detected by such live sonar imaging systems. A sonar image enhancement pipeline utilizes a target enhancement kernel sized in accordance with the subject targets to provide enhancement thereof without also enhancing other sonar return data. The output of the enhancement pipeline is combined with the sonar data from the normal image filtering pipeline to produce a sonar image for display on the consumer fish finder that greatly increases the visibility of the targets without affecting the non-target sonar returns for, e.g., the bottom and structure in the water column.
Claims24
A method of accentuating at least one target ensonified in a fishing environment by a sonar system, without accentuating structures in the fishing environment also ensonified by the sonar system, for presentation on a fish finder display, comprising the steps of:
- constructing a sonar echogram in polar coordinates from sonar echo returns from the fishing environment ensonified by the sonar system;
- convolving a predetermined template matrix on specific regions of the sonar echogram to form a target layer having an enhanced target contained therein;
- blending the target layer with the sonar echogram to form a polar output sonar image;
- converting the polar output sonar image to cartesian coordinates to form an enhanced target sonar image;
- and
- displaying the enhanced target sonar image on the fish finder display.
A method of accentuating at least one target ensonified in a fishing environment by a sonar system, without accentuating structures in the fishing environment also ensonified by the sonar system, for presentation on a fish finder display, comprising the steps of:
- constructing a sonar echogram from sonar echo returns from the fishing environment ensonified by the sonar system;
- convolving a predetermined template matrix on specific regions of the sonar echogram to form a target layer having an enhanced target contained therein;
- blending the target layer with the sonar echogram to form an enhanced target sonar image;
- and
- displaying the enhanced target sonar image on the fish finder display.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.