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US 8,854,920 B2Granted
Volume rendering of 3D sonar data
AssigneeCodaoctopus Group
InventorMartyn Sloss
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Sonar imaging data obtained by sending multiple sonar pings towards an object is reduced by assigning values measured by each sonar ping to bins, where each bin is fixed in World Space, and calculating the opacity of each bin to produce an image of the object. A normal vector associated with each bin is used to calculate the light reflected from a model constructed from the data. The most preferred normal vector is calculated from the vector sum of normals calculated from each ping.
Claims16
A method of volumetric rendering of three dimensional sonar data sets of relating to an object immersed in a fluid, comprising:
- a) partitioning a volume of space containing at least part of the object by establishing a set of three dimensional bins occupying the volume of space, wherein the bins are arranged on a large plurality of planes stacked in a z direction, and wherein the bins of each of the large plurality of planes are arrayed with a large plurality of bins in each of x and y directions, where x, y and z are mutually orthogonal spatial coordinates;
- b) directing an nth ping from a source towards the object immersed in the fluid, the ping directed at a time tn, wherein a ping is pulse of sound waves with pulse time τp;
- then
- c) receiving sound waves reflected from the object with a two dimensional sonar receiving array, wherein the sonar receiving array communicates signals measuring the reflected sound waves to a computer readable recording device;
- then
- d) processing the signals measuring the reflected sound waves to assign values of at least reflected intensity to each ping point of an nth set of ping points arranged in a three dimensional array in the volume of space containing the object, wherein each ping point has an associated resolution depending on the range of the ping point from the detector, and wherein the values are recorded in a computer readable media;
- e) adding a portion of the values assigned to each ping point to one or more bins according to a criterion;
- then
- f) relatively moving the object and the two dimensional sonar receiving array, and repeating steps a) to e) a plurality of N of times t1 . . . tN;
- g) calculating an image for display on an image display device from the binned values recorded in step e).
7 more elements
A method of volumetric rendering of three dimensional sonar data sets of relating to an object immersed in a fluid, comprising:
- a) partitioning a volume of space containing at least part of the object by establishing a set of three dimensional bins occupying the volume of space, wherein the bins are arranged on a large plurality of planes stacked in a z direction, and wherein the bins of each of the large plurality of planes are arrayed with a large plurality of bins in each of x and y directions, where x, y and z are mutually orthogonal spatial coordinates;
- b) directing an nth ping from a source towards the object immersed in the fluid, the ping directed at a time tn, wherein a ping is pulse of sound waves with pulse time τp;
- then
- c) receiving sound waves reflected from the object with a two dimensional sonar receiving array, wherein the sonar receiving array communicates signals measuring the reflected sound waves to a computer readable recording device;
- then
- d) processing the signals measuring the reflected sound waves to assign values of at least reflected intensity to each ping point of an nth set of ping points arranged in a three dimensional array in the volume of space containing the object, wherein each ping point has an associated resolution depending on the range of the ping point from the detector, and wherein the values are recorded in a computer readable media;
- e) processing the results of step d) to assign a ping point normal vector to each ping point;
- then
- f) adding the assigned ping point intensity values assigned to each ping point and vector adding ping point normal vector values assigned to each ping point in steps c) to d) to each bin of the set of three dimensional bins, subject to a criterion;
- g) relatively moving the object and the two dimensional sonar receiving array, and repeating steps a) to f) at plurality of n of times t1 . . . tn;
- then
- h) calculating an image for display on an image display device from the binned values recorded in step f).
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.