SINGLE BEAM SURVEY USING EIVA SOFTWARE
Amirul Izam Fauzi, Othman Mohd Yusof, Eddy Junaidy Emran
Centre of Studies for Surveying Science and Geomatics, Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450
Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, MALAYSIA.
Email: izam930619@gmail.com
Abstract -Nowadays there is a lot of processing software that
are available in the market to process the hydrography data. The
advantages of using these processing software are that it will help
to collect and process the data faster compared to the conventional
method. In order to differentiate the variety of software that
available in the market is the way of the software being operated.
The aim of this study is to conduct a bathymetric survey using a
single beam echo sounder and process the data using EIVA
software. There are a few stages in order to complete the study.
The first stage is the project preparation such as calculate and
configure the sounding line, configure the vessel shape, geodetic
parameter, and all the system configuration for the navigation. All
the system configuration will be set up using NaviPac Software.
Next, for the second stage is the data collection at the site. The site
area for this study is located near the North Port, Klang and the
dimension of the survey is 160m x 200m. Lastly, for the third stage
is the data processing. The data will be processed using NaviEdit
and NaviModel software and the bathymetric chart will be
processed using NaviPlot software. The result of this study is the
depth and contour of the survey area. Based on the results of this
study, a standard procedure for the acquisition of the data until
the production of bathymetric chart of the survey area was
developed. As a conclusion, the objective of this study has been
achieved which is to plan the procedure to collect and set up the
data using NaviPac. The next objective is to conduct a bathymetric
survey of the site and the last objective is to process the survey data
using NaviEdit and NaviModel and produce a bathymetric chart
of the study area by using NaviPlot. EIVA software is suitable to
be used to collect and process the data as it is easy to use and easy
to handle.
Index Term – Bathymetric Survey, Echo Sounder, EIVA
Software, NaviPac, NaviEdit, NaviModel, NaviPlot.
I. INTRODUCTION
Hydrographic surveying is the study of measuring and showing the
specification and structure of the seabed classification with the land
mass and dynamic features of the sea (International Hydrographic
Organization, 2005). The advancement of marine activities in
Malaysia had increased every year. Besides used for nautical chart, the
hydrographic surveying data also being used in another application
such as marine engineering, ocean habitat studies, pipeline inspection,
determination of maritime boundary and many more. Nowadays there
are a lot of software that have been in the market to process the
hydrography data. This software will help to collect and process the
data faster as compared with the conventional method. In order to
differentiate the variety of software that available in the market is the
way of the software being operated and the easiest to handle the
software. For example, NaviSuite is one of the products under EIVA
software, a complete software toolbox for subsea survey and
engineering.
It is marine software and a system organization in designing and
assembly software and integrated system solutions for hydrographic
surveying. EIVA headquarters consists of one building with an area of
3500 square meters. The headquarters are located close to Aarhus. Its
building has provided modern, production line, calibration laboratory,
electronic workshop and a housing software development with the
purpose-built facilities. This company consists of more than 60
workers, including a team that specialist in developing software for
marine application, starting from the navigation to data collection then
to post-processing data and lastly production of charts. All of these
people have a solid background education and a wide experience in
doing the programming. Some of the workers in the company have
worked in many years, thus has a wide range of experience with the
product software and its application (Herskind, 2006).
In 1978, EIVA was founded and at the early stage of its foundation, it
provided the services, equipment and sensor for the exploration of oil
and gas industry. In 1982, EIVA begin to develop by introducing
NaviPac integrated navigation software. Then, EIVA has gone a rapid
development to become a well-known offshore company until todays
with its main objectives is the integrated software solution system to
be use in hydrographic surveying, construction of the offshore and
work inspection, seafloor mapping, geophysical surveying,
oceanographic research and many more
For the development of the software, EIVA has made a standard tool
for the design and specification, management and the documentation.
The Bureau Veritas Quality Institute (BVQI) had acknowledged EIVA
to ISO 9001:2008 of the management quality system. The quality
certification part is based on the object oriented methods and the
standard waterfall models of the development procedures. The main
objective of EIVA is to be the main provider for the offshore software
that are related to the hydrographic surveying (Herskind, 2006). This
can be seen from the past, experience that this is the best approach to
make sure that a close interactive process with the end user. By this
way, the interface of the man machine of the software as well as the
future features can be in conjunction and the user can get a more
satisfying and user friendliness result.
The product of EIVA software contains of a software for all types of
offshore surveying starting from the navigation to the data collection,
to the post-processing of the data and lastly to the production of the
sheets. The modules in the EIVA are NaviPac for the Integrated
Navigation, NaviScan for the Multi beam and Sonar Data collection,
NaviEdit for Editing Survey Data, NaviModel for the Digital Terrain
Mapping and lastly NaviPlot for the Production and Charting of Fair
Sheet (Herskind, 2006). Other than this module, EIVA also has
optional modules software that is available for certain purpose such as
cable laying, pipeline inspection and barge/tug management. All the
modules form a seamless solution of software that allows the data to
transfer from a module to another module. The capability of the
interface that contains a selectable export and import of the data
formats make each module to be used in stand-alone interface mode
with the third party software. The entire software suite is very famous
in the offshore market and it is still under a continuous research in
order to fulfil the requirement of the new industry which is developed
Preliminary Work (Phase 1)
every day.
• Doing research about bathymetry mapping.
II. AIM AND OBJECTIVES • Study about the software used for data collection.
• Selection of study area and problem identification.
The aim of the study is to conduct a bathymetry survey using single
beam echo sounder to collect the bathymetry data and to process the
data by using EIVA software. In order to achieve the aim, the
following objectives need to be fulfilled:-
Preparation (Phase 2)
a. To plan the procedure to collect and set up the data using NaviPac • Find image satellite of study area (North Port) from google
module under EIVA software. image
b. To conduct a bathymetric survey at the site • Installation of EIVA software
c. To process the survey data using NaviEdit and NaviModel and • Configuration of the software and the equipment
produce a bathymetric plan of the study area by using NaviPlot

III. METHODOLOGY

The methodology can be divided into five phases, namely phase 1,

phase 2, phase 3, phase 4 and phase 5. Phase 1 is about preliminary Site Collection (Phase 3)
work which includes doing a research about bathymetric mapping, • Conduct bathymetric survey using NaviPac
software that will be used and the study area together with the problem
identification. Phase 2 is about preparation stages such as installation
of the EIVA software and configuration of the software and the
equipment while phase 3 is a data acquisition by conducting
bathymetric survey using NaviPac. Phase 4 is the data processing by
using NaviEdit and NaviModel and lastly phase 5 is the result and Data Processing (Phase 4)
analysis section by producing bathymetric plan using NaviPlot. Figure • Process the data using NaviEdit and NaviModel
1 illustrates research methodology for this study.

3.1 Site Study

The site of this study is located at latitude 3° 1'40.51"N and longitude Result and Analysis (Phase 5)
101°20'18.37"E. The size of the study area for the bathymetric survey • Produce bathymetry plan using NaviPlot
is about 160 metres by 200 metres. The study area is situated at North • Analysis of the result.
Port,Klang. Figure 2 shows the location of the study area.
Figure 1. Research Methodology

such as modification time, database version, information of the server,

entities number, information about the dongle, NaviPac mode and all
these items cannot be edited as it only display the information on the
panel.

The Instruments are displaying and control/editing all the instrument

Figure 2. Location of the Study Area (Google, 2015)
3.2 NaviPac Configuration
When the user open the NaviPac Configuration, the main window will
appear as shown in Figure 3. This program will automatically loads the
setup file (eg \eiva\navipac\db\gensetup.db). Next, the file name will
displayed in the Setup File fields. The user can edit any setup file with
NaviPac Configuration, but in order to use it for navigation, the file
must be named to gensetup.db. The file header are displaying the
information about the most recently setting that is setup by the user
that have in the list. The setup configuration for the Instruments will
only setup the Surface Navigation for tracking system, Gyro and
compass for the vessel and also the dynamic objects, Data Acquisition
which is echo sounders and Offsets on the vessel or dynamic objects.
For surface navigation, a GPS (NMEA) types is chosen. For the gyro,
NMEA gyro is chosen but it will only be setup as calculated mode only
because there is no gyro instrument is used in this study. Next, for the
data acquisition, NMEA 183 Depth is selected and lastly the offset for
the GPS and the Echo sounder also must be defined.
The Geodesy are displaying and control/editing the selected geodesy.
Under Geodesy configuration, this survey will used the projection
system of Rectified Skew Orthophomic Malaysia (MRSO) because it
is surveyed in Peninsular Malaysia. The ellipsoid used is Everest 1948
West Malaysia and the Datum Shifts used is from WGS84 to Kertau
Datum. These parameters are needed in order to transform the position
between the two datum’s which is WGS84 and Kertau Datum. EIVA
uses 7-parameter datum shifts that required 3-translation, 3-rotation,
and a scale factors. ITRF is an optional addition datum shift. The scale
used is in metric. The geodetic parameter for Malaysia is not available
in the list menu in NaviPac software. The user can entered the
parameter value by manually or by updating the geodetic parameter in
the EIVA database. If the geodetic parameter have been updated in the
database, the user can choose from the list menu available in the
geodesy setting.

The Objects are displaying and control/editing the objects used in this
setup. Next, under Objects configuration, the object use the vessel only
and the user do not need to setup again at the Object because it will
follow the setup at the Instruments. Lastly, the Warm Start are Figure 4. Report View of the Vessel
displaying and control/editing of which modules the user want to
activate during navigation start up.

Figure 5. Graphical View of the Vessel

3.3 Configuration of the sounding line

Every survey is performed by using a pre-planned survey lines. The

survey lines can be generated on Helmsman’s Display. This survey
used a single line. A single lines are lines defined with a starting
coordinate and end with a coordinate. Then, a line is drawn between
the two coordinates. It can be a straight line or a curved line. The
starting line for this survey is 371500 mE and the end coordinate is
335200 mN. There is a total of 17 lines in this survey, but only 8 lines
will be surveyed. The fix interval of the line is 5m. The survey line
which also known as runline will be saved as *.rlx file in the folder
displayline on the database. Figure 4.10 shows the survey line of the
study area that had been configured.
Figure 3. NaviPac Configuration System

3.3 Configuration of the vessel shape

The specification of the vessel must be specified before the survey can
be started. The vessel shape can be done in the Graphic Editor under
Tools which can be found on the window panel in NaviPac. The length
of the vessel is 7.32m and the width of the vessel is 1.68m. The vessel
shape is used online in the Helmsman’s Display to give the user an
idea about the vessel shape and the heading. The user can define the
shape manually or import a vessel shape from a previous project. The
vessel shape is defined as a series of X, and Y points. Start the drawing
by choosing Start Polygon with Fill and Edge. Then, entered the X and
Figure 6. The Survey Line of the Study Area
Y coordinates for the first point, then move to second coordinate, and
for the next coordinate, choose a line in order to join all the lines. 3.3 Equipment Installation
When all the coordinate has finished entered, closed the drawing by
choosing End Polygon. The shape of the vessel can be viewed in The transducer was installed accurately as possible in relation to other
graphical view by referring to the figure 4.9. Next, save the file of the survey system. If the transducer was mounted improperly on the
vessel as shape file *.shp. vessel, it will give a poor system operation result and the quality of the
data is cannot be accepted. If the transducer is installed temporarily, it
is often mounted at the over the side of the boat, but if the transducer
is installed permanently, it is often hull mounted on the boat. Figure 4.
shows that the transducer was installed over the portside of the vessel.
The transducer must be mounted on the boat as far as below the
waterline. But, if the “over the side” mounts are unprotected from the
wave action, the transducer must be mounted far enough below the
water surface in order to make sure it still properly submerged during
roll motions of the vessel. Besides that, the transducer also must be
installed as possible as close to the centre of gravity in order to reduce
the effect of roll and pitch. The ideal place to locate the transducer is
at the third or half of the length of the vessel that is measured from the
bow. To prevent the bubbles generated by the bow from passing over
the face of the unit, the transducer must be mounted far enough from Figure 7. Result before smoothing the data
the bow and it also should be located far away from the source of noise
such as engine and propeller.

Figure 8. Result after smoothing the data

4.1 Processing the Contour Line in NaviModel

Figure 4. Installation of the transducer
IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
In order to generate the contour line, the data from the NaviEdit must
be exported into ASCII (XYZ) file which is in *.xyz format. When the
data is successfully exported in *.xyz format, the data can be opened
in NaviModel for further processing. The NaviModel will create the
data into Digital Terrain Model so that the contour line can be created.

After data collection had been done, the data need to be process to
make the chart more beautiful as long as the data not interrupted too
much. The data that had been collected maybe not in good condition
cause by the big wave at the site and also the position of the vessel
which may not always constantly in right angle. The step to process
the single beam data is not as complicated as processing the multibeam
data. For a single beam data, the data need to go through the process
of removing the spike and also the process to smoothing the data.

From this data, it does not have too many spikes thus, it is not
necessary to undergo spike removing procedure and it just needs to go
through the process of smoothing the data. The data can be smoothed
in NaviEdit by inserting a suitable wave length to the data. It is
recommended to apply the lowest wavelength as possible as can in
order to maintain the quality of the data. The reason to smoothing the
data is that it is used to filter out a high frequency noise from the data.
If the wavelength is set too high, it might remove the important
features in the data set. The suitable wavelength applied to the data is
20 seconds wave length and after the smoothing is applied, the graph
of the depth data is smoother compared to the graph before the
smoothing process is applied.
Figure 9. The Digital Terrain Model of the data
According to the Figure 7. Digital Terrain Model, the shallowest part
of the survey area is at 2.34m and the deepest part is at 5.45m and
mostly the depth of the area is around 4.8m. For shallower water
regions, it is important to have a knowledge of the seafloor depths for
the purpose of navigation and also as a warning hazards to shipping.
The survey area is quite safe for the vessel to pass by around it. Besides
that, mapping the ocean floor also important for the purpose of
offshore resource exploration and exploitation such as fisheries and
hazardous waste disposal. Before creating the contour, the outline
around the DTM must be created first so that the contour can be
generated just around the DTM area.
 various format such as Displayline *.dis, ESRI Shape *.shp, AutoCAD
*.dxf, XYZ *.xyz, Google Earth *.kml, Pipetracker *.pip, Digitized
line *.dig etc.

Figure 10. Creating Outline around the DTM

When the outline around the DTM is displayed, then the contour can
be started to generate. The contour is generated from one point to one Figure 12. Total Area of the Survey Area
point. The Interval Minors of the contour is set to 0.5m and the Interval
Majors is set to 5m with the cell size factor is set to 1. A contour lines
is an imaginary lines that connecting the points of the same elevation
or depth. An interval contour is the predetermined difference between
two lines contour. A map that shows very close line of contour means
that the land is very steep. On the other hand, a map that has a wide
space between the lines contours means that it has a gentle slope. The
smaller the interval contour, the more capable the map can show the
finer features and also details of the land.

Figure 13. Total Volume of the Survey Area

After all procedure had completed, the contour data must be save as
*.nmc format so that it can be exported to the NaviPlot for producing
the chart.

4.2 Importing the data into NaviPlot

The bathymetric chart will be produced in A3 size with the dimension

Figure 11(a). Generating the Contour Line
of 420mm X 297mm. The size of the sheets must be setup first on the
NaviPlot. Then, on the main frame of the sheets, draw a new frame to
insert the data that had been exported earlier such as *.bpl, and *.nmc
file. The layout of the chart is prepared according to the standard
format. The scale of the plan is 1:1000 and the length from the first
point to the last point is about 200m. After the chart is finished, the file
of the chart can be exported to the AutoCAD format. The line of the
survey in the chart area will show the depth of the seabed to the chart
datum and this will help the vessel to identify the best route to pass by
in order to make sure the safety of the vessel.

Figure 11(b). Generating the Contour Line

NaviModel also are capable to calculate the total area of the survey
area based on the outlines created along the DTM. By referring to the
figure 4.31, the total survey area that are calculated is 48441.927 meter
per square. Besides that, the other advantages of NaviModel also it can
calculate the volume of the survey area. By referring to the figure 4.32,
the volume above for the survey area is 2750.6 meter cube and the
volume below for the area is 16 558.9 meter cube. On top of that, the
user also can save as the contour data that have been processed in Figure 14. Bathymetric Chart Produce by NaviPlot
 V. DISCUSSIONS 5.2 Verification of the data

5.1 Coordinate Frame Rotation in EIVA
When the setup of geodetic parameter had completed, it is a good
practice to test the parameters that had been setup using a known point
in both coordinate systems. A test option is included in the NaviPac
Online under Calculate WGS84. It will open a calculator interface to
calculate the conversion of positions between WGS 84 and the user
datum. The user will enter the coordinates that need to be converted
either as a grid coordinates or geographical coordinates. Refer to figure
13.
From the bathymetric plan produced, the depth of the survey area
shown in the plan can be prove correct because the depth data is tally
for the highest depth and the lowest depth of the survey area when
viewed back in the NaviEdit, NaviModel and also NaviPlot. Figure
4.48 and Figure 4.49 shows the viewing of the highest and lowest depth
of the area. The highest depth that was recorded is 5.45 meters and the
lowest depth that was recorded is 2.34 meters.

Figure 15. Coordinate Test in EIVA

EIVA software offer a different kind of datum shift methods. If the

Coordinate Frame Rotation given by the geodetic parameter is counter
clockwise, then an opposite sign must be applied on all the rotation
parameters. For example, the Coordinate Frame Rotation that is given
by PETRONAS shows that the datum shifts for the Rotation X and Y
are positive and the Rotation Z are negative and as stated earlier in Figure 16. Highest Depth of the Survey Area
EIVA, the user must apply the opposite signs for the rotation
parameters so automatically the Rotation X and Y will become
negative and the Rotation Z will become positive. Table 1 shows the
difference setup between PETRONAS and EIVA. At the end of the
result, the coordinate conversion from WGS 84 to Kertau Datum in
EIVA is the same as the coordinate conversion from the documents
that have been used by PETRONAS and this approved that the survey
can be done by using this software.

Table 1. Difference Datum Transformation between PETRONAS and

EIVA
PARAMETER PETRONAS EIVA

Translation X +379.776 metres +379.776 metres

Translation X -775.384 metres -775.384 metres

Translation X +86.609 metres +86.609 metres
Rotation X +2.59674 seconds -2.59674 seconds
Rotation X +2.10213 seconds -2.10213 seconds
+12.11377
Rotation X -12.11377 seconds
seconds
Scale +1.0 ppm +1.0 ppm

Figure 15. Lowest Depth of the Survey Are

5.3 Limitation of the study
The limitation of this study is the echo sounder used in the survey is
limited to a single beam only. The data that is collected by a single
beam echo sounder is lower density of the data as compared to the
multibeam echo sounder. The results that is produced by a multibeam
echo sounder is more details as it will show the bottom contour, debris,
scour areas and other bottom conditions of the survey area such as
shipwreck. Besides that, the multibeam echo sounder also can provides
the sediment characterization of the survey area, and the data also have
a higher accuracy compare to single beam echo sounder. The method
to collect the data also is more effective in order to create a detailed 3-
dimensional models for the survey area such as river and lake bottoms
as it will collect a several soundings at once. This will reduce the
triangular interpolation between the data points because there are more
data compared to single beam data.
On the other hand, the mapping product that is produce by the
multibeam data also is better that mapping product from the single
beam data but this is not to justify that the data from the single beam
is not good because the data from the single beam also can give a great
picture of the survey area but a generalized one that is best for
hydraulic modelling, spotting a significant changes, and also for the
cutting precise cross sections. Meanwhile, the data from the multibeam
can provide all of that and even more.
VI. CONCLUSION
As a conclusion, EIVA software is a powerful tool that can be used in
hydrographic survey because it can provide a lot of things starting from
the data acquisition to the processing of the data and finally to the
production of the chart. EIVA can be categorized into two which is an
online software suite mainly for on-board data acquisition, quality
control, recording etc. and an offline processing suite mainly for the
purpose on-board and ashore data cleaning, data processing and
reporting. The online software suite is mainly based on NaviPac for
single beam data and NaviScan for multibeam data is basically meet
all the characteristic of online software that is required for online
marine activities no matter what type of task or the level of complexity
of the work.
alternative to the function of exporting, NaviEdit also can access and
load the data into the NaviEdit SQL database directly.
NaviModel is used as a tool to manipulate with the digital terrain
models (DTMs) either for single beam data or multibeam data. The
terrain modelling can be based on the Triangular Regular Network
(TRN) or on Triangular Irregular Network (TIN) algorithms. The data
that is exported from the NaviModel usually can be used for further
processing in NaviPlot.
NaviPlot is a fair sheet production software that gives the facilities for
the layout of the survey data. The layout chart manager in NaviPlot is
used to automate and thereby to make it easy for generation of multiple
plots as plot series that inherits a common layout of the single plot.
Besides that, NaviPlot also can supports exporting the current works
to a series of different plotting formats, such as AutoCAD format, PDF
format and S-57.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying Universiti Teknologi
MARA (UiTM), Department of Surveying Science and Geomatics, Dr.
Othman Mohd Yusof, Mr. Eddy Junaidy Emran and a special thanks to
who directly or indirectly involved in this study
REFERENCES
[1]. Google Inc. (2015). Google Earth. Retrieved April 2015,
from Google Earth: www.google earth.com
[2]. Herskind, P. (2006). Marine Software and Integrated
Systems Solutions. 2.
[3]. IHO. (2008). IHO Standards for Hydrographic Surveys. 5th
edition. Monaco: International Hydrographic Bureau.
[4]. EIVA User Manual

NaviPac can provide the information about the navigation and

positioning calculations to support in any offshore works as well as
offshore engineering and also construction operations. Meanwhile,
NaviScan is used to acquire the data from all major sonars that have
on the market, including with other multibeam echo sounders, sonar
profiling and scanning, pipe trackers, side scan sonars etc. Besides
that, NaviPac and NaviScan also supports most sensors that are
available on the market.

This software has a flexible configuration together with intuitive user

interface that makes it easy to setup the geodetic parameters and also
to select a sensor interface from a pre-defined list of the sensor.
Besides that, the user also can alternatively through into a user-defined
generic driver. On top of that, the port setting is also easily available
for testing prior to the mission.

The offline packages can be divided into three main components that
related to each other at the level of post-processing. Basically,
NaviEdit is used for the initial editing of the raw data that was collected
during the online phase. Moreover, NaviEdit also provides a variety of
exporters that can be linked to NaviModel and NaviPlot. As an