Lowrance software upgrades

[Doc Samson]

Lowrance.com has new software updates for 111,26. I upgraded mine and you can now record chart data to the hard drive. You can save .usr files to the hard drive. It appears that you can also set your sensitivity, colorline, chart speed and save the settings for different conditions (shallow or deep water). I hoped they would let us use the hard drive someday.

[Joe W]

Doc - If I record a SLG and it becomes large, say 5G, it there a way to transfer it to a PC?

[Doc Samson]

Joe,
Nice to hear from you.
I think we can only use 2 or 4 gigs on the hard drive. If you record continuously and get 2 gigs of recordings you have been out all night! It takes approximately one MB of memory for one minute of recording when recording on high quality.
You have to transfer the slg file to your MMC and then to your PC. I always recommend recording a short time and then start a new recording. Since I replay my recordings at my classes, I like short ones. When I create my contour maps from the recordings, the length is not important as I can add them together.
Doc

[Joe W]

Doc - What's the largest Sd/MMC card I can use in a X26HD?

[Doc Samson]

I don't know. I know one guy who has used a 1 GIG. I haven't heard from anyone that the larger sizes don't work even though Warren says it is possible. I really recomend not recording large files. You can't change the .slg after you have recorded it. For example if you recorded 1 GIG of charts on high quality, you have 14 hours!!! In the future you may only want to keep 5 minutes of that recording but you can't delete parts of the file. I have been recording for 3 years and I have found most of my files are under 20 MB. I just keep starting new ones. I have never filled a 256 MB card up except the first year. After I reviewed them in the winter I realized the value of small recordings. Next year I am thinking about recording directly to a card instead of the hard drive because you will need to copy the file to a card anyway in order to view the recording on your PC.
Have fun, this is the most powerful tool in your Lowrance.

[Snoekbears]

Doc,

How do you transfer the SLG files to contour maps. I have been working on that long time ago with Jerry Bark. I have created the conversion to an excel sheet in lat-lon as well as to mercator meter and x - y It works great, only one touch of the button.
I am still looking for a simple way and or program to put that into graphics. Used 3dfield, surfer 8, but it is all so complicated.

Still looking to put the depth contours back into the Lowrance as well.

Doc do you have some software of this kind that I can buy or download?

Thanks,

Bert.

[WarrenMN]

Bears
Hi, I work with Bruce on his maps and "try" to give him technical help. I was doing what you mentioned for Bruce to create maps but he's got it down to where he does it right in the boat. What Bruce does is first view the SLG file on the Lowrance Sonar Viewer which has a funtion under Files called Output Chart Information. Make sure you have Lowrances 1.2.2 current version. The earlier version doesn't have that out put. It turns the Lowrance format data into a CSV or a comma seperated V? what ever. Its a text format where the fields are seperated by commas.
Then he loads that data into a program called 3DField. This will sort all the unnecessary information out of the file and make a computer model of it. Then you can choice what you want to make a map look like. But there is a catch I found last night. You can have too big a SLG. Then it won't let you use all the modeling types with out running out of memory, but you can still likely use one called Triangulation that makes maps, but they tend to have the contour lines making angles instead of smooth curves.
You can out put these lines to load into a Lowrance unit but thats where gets tricky and you better be smarter than the average bear when it comes to using the computer. You out put the lines in some thing like a shape file, won't explain, into a program like Fugawi or Global Mapper and have it save them as Lowrance Track files. A lot of this will be in Bruces advanced classes, and a little in his first level.
Bruce also decided to carry all three of these programs on his web site to save people having to run around.

WarrenMN

PS, I've used Surfer for I don't know how many years, but for some thing that is only a computer modeler, I don't think people are going to put out $600 for just that. I do think it is still the best program out there, but not for this. I do the conversion too, but I never did any more than a couple of functions to sort and save.

[WarrenMN]

Joe, you got mail. Hope thats close but let me know if theres any thing different you wanted. Higher res? I usually add 0 depth data if I have good shoreline imagery but this was kind of green in what I had so I didn't. Thats why it starts at 5 instead of tailing off to zero on shore.
WarrenMN

[jerry bark]

hey bert,

i am still working on that. currently i can convert the SLG and make a contour plot with three mouse clicks.

i am writing the code that allows me to convert the contour plot into trails.

i am also working on finding a statistical method for detecting bad readings in the data, so far this has been difficult but it should lead to much cleaner contours.

a friend wrote some code that converts the trails into a .USR file for me.

once i have the plot to trail conversion code done i will just have to bring it all together in one application.

i should have this done by spring (remember this is just a goof-off project, i don't even own a lowrance chartplotter), perchjerker has done some testing for me and so far it all looks good.

what you will be able to do then is to take your .SLG and make a series of depth contours which will be saved as trails. then you can load the trail(s) that you want for the day over your basemap. making a true basemap is much more difficult and i don't care to mess with that.

cheers
jerry

[Doc Samson]

Bert,
It is very complicated and I have many hours into this. I am lucky to have Warren help me thru the process. I use 3DField to open the .csv file and create contour maps. I use either Fugawi or Global Mapper to view the contour maps. Both these programs can convert the contours to trails (.usr) easily. You are the perfect person to attend my mapping class. I demonstrate the above process and how to use the mapping programs to find new spots. The class is 3 hours and all questions will be answered. You are not alone in the struggle to create contours. I have future attendees sending me their .slg files to demonstrate at the clases. It makes more sense to learn from your own data. I will have Fugawi, Global Mapper, and 3DField available for sale at my classes. I have tech support for our type of maps included. I do not have them for sale on my website yet. You can email me if you are interested. doc@hightechfishing.com

[jerry bark]

Doc,

don't you have to trace the contours manually in those programs to make trails??

my checking into those suggests that you do.

cheers
jerry

[WarrenMN]

No, if you out put contour lines in DXF or SHP, depending on the map program you import them to, they will export that as track files in the Lowrance USR file type.
WarrenMN

[WarrenMN]

Jerry, I wanted to ask if you ever tried for picking out the bad pings, after the usefull data is extracted to keep the data in order it was recieved and then in Excel just run the chart program. The bad ones stick out as you scan across.
WarrenMN

[WarrenMN]

For any one else wanting to play with their own conversion here's a function adapted from Lowrances C language version. Remember, you have to filter out the rows of data with out X and Y data in the CSV file after you run it in Sonar Viewer.

D=(B*57.2957795132)/6356752.3142
E=57.2957795132*(2* ATAN( EXP( C/6356752.3142 )) - 1.570796327)

B and C are northing and easting the columns. This should be easily adapted to Excel or any other program. A was the depth.

WarrenMN

[jerry bark]

warren,

i can find them that way, or just by looking at the cleaned up data.

but since i allready have this down to less than 10 seconds why make the process slower? besides what happens when you have more than 66,000 data points and excel runs out of space?

i did not know that you could grab the contours without tracing, perchjerker had not found how to do this yet and he has been my beta-tester/info source.

cheers
jerry

[Doc Samson]

Jerry,
After import the contour lines into Fugawi I have to trace them as tracks and then export them as Lowrance trails. Global Mapper exports the contour lines as trails without tracing. Doc

[Snoekbears]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the response, it is unelievable that you guys worked on this "inventing the wheel" with the same goal. Get the perfect chart, get the perfect spot, get the most fish. I am a real amateur, living in the Caribbean, fishing only a few times in Holland per year. But I can't let go of this fish.
What I'll do (as I don't work in december), I'll use your info, and get it as close as Jerry. I think within five mouseclicks it can be done to make a *.slg to a *.usr file to load back into the machine.
If I have to I'll crack the navionics code, am very close, tell them how I did it and use it for myself.

I'll try your systems and see if I can find the best way. I'll be in touch. And for Doc: As I am a poor fellow living abroad, I cant take your course, I'll buy any video etc. And if I win the lottery, I'll be in contact.

Ciao from a sunny Bonaire,

Bert.

[WarrenMN]

I'm not going to get into how I'd write a program for this but I will tell you some thing you may not know. Alot of files store their data in text format with Easting in column A and northing in column B representing all the corners in the polygon. To make multiple polygons in the same file the first row of an individual polygon declares a value of 0 to set a flag then a comma and then the B column is how many rows to follow are that polygon. The following polygon declares 0 to flag then comma and in column B again how many rows are that one. If you create a BLN file in Surfer you can see what I mean.
WarrenMN

[jerry bark]

good luck bert, have fun!

i'm just playing, there are some interesting math and logical problems to be solved.

cheers
jerry

[Doc Samson]

Bert,
My Instructional DVDs do not teach the conversion of a .slg file to a contour .usr file yet. I am presently working on an add-on to my Part 2 DVD that demonstrates how to create contours from 3DField using .slg files. I am also planning on a DVD that will demonstrate how to convert the contours from 3DField to Global Mapper to .usr files. I can do it in 4 minutes or less. I am working on too many projects to predict which gets done first. I thought it was difficult to learn but it is really hard to teach so everybody can understand easily. Doc