Project Name:

Ground Fish Survey Manager Application

Project Dates: 

October 2002 to January 2003

Project Description:

The Ground Fish Survey Manager application was developed as part of the Ground Fish Survey Database Support project.

The NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) conducts an annual Ground Fish Survey off of the Western coast of the United States. The purpose of the annual Survey is to sample fish catches in specific geographical areas and to collect data to support statistical analysis of fish populations.

At the completion of each Ground Fish Survey cruise, the data is collected from the on-board computers and transferred to the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, WA. Biologists to a tow-by-tow review the aggregate raw sensor data generated at sea by automated sensors attached to the net and vessel.  The raw sensor data is used as a basis for calculating, and often estimating, key values related to the sampling effort. The types of effort data calculated are average, minimum and maximum tow depth, bottom temperature, net width, and net height. In addition, time sequenced GPS data from the vessel and the net, are analyzed to determine the true course of the vessel and the net during each net tow. In previous years, this process has been very time consuming due to the large amount of data and lack of suitable tools.  Survey Manager was developed to provide a means to view, edit and analyze sensor data on a tow-by-tow basis and tow assist in the estimation process. 

The Survey Manager tool, developed in C#.NET, enables the user to select any tow stored in the centralized Oracle database to be retrieved and viewed. Survey Manager displays data from each sensor and provides graphical viewing tools to view and manipulate the plotted data.  In addition, Survey Manager graphically displays the geographical track that the vessel and net followed during the tow.

Technology Used:

Oracle 9i, Visual Studio .NET, C#, ADO.NET, GDI+

 

Samples: