Shared Memory Area of SURVEY Program
Opens New Opportunities
 Memory from the Shared Memory area running with Survey |
The release of HYPACK MAX brings a new feature with the SURVEY program call "Shared Memory". Developed by Craig Berry and Lazar Pevac, this new feature allows the SURVEY program to make its information available to other programs operating on the same computer. HYPACK can now share the navigation and targeting data with other applications. Already the MULTISCAN program which provides real time visualization of multibeam and side scan sonar data has been adapted to make use of this feature. Ocean Imaging which makes the GeoDAS side scan sonar and multibeam visualization/targeting program has also adapted their software to be able to get their information through this shared memory area.
"Shared Memory" is a special area in RAM which the SURVEY program can post the latest information. Every time there is a navigation update, the WGS-84 Lat/Long/Ht, local datum Lat/Long/Ht, project X-Y, Hdop, # of Satellites, time tag and other relevant information are posted to the shared memory area. The same is true with depths, tides, heave-pitch-roll, ROV and towfish position and just about any other information relevant to HYPACK. Other applications can access this area for their survey information as fast as they require.
What’s nice about this new feature is that it allows us to write small custom programs without have to make changes to the SURVEY program. For example, in the application to the right, Craig has made a small program which displays the values for the vessel and ROV from the shared memory area. It also contains a graph of the HDOP and # of Satellites. This is a stand-alone executable, meaning it does not effect the SURVEY program in any way.
 HDOP graph from Shared Memory area. |
Already we have created a special program which reads the displayed memory area and allows you to select which items you wish to export, what order you wish them exported, how often to export them and which port to export them over. This will replace a lot of the custom output drivers we have had to develop in the past. We are also building a barge monitoring program which takes the information from the SURVEY program and records it to a user-requested file format. It is a lot faster and more cost effective for us to write a short executable rather than have to try to adapt the SURVEY program to meet everyone’s needs. It also is safer, as we don’t have to mess with the SURVEY program while we try to meet user’s requests.
