Beta Release 2.00.10 June 2017
06/06/2017
Latest Beta Version 2.00.10 June 2017
PAMGuard Version 2 contains major updates. You should read and understand these notes before proceeding with installation and use of this version. These changes have been funded under contract to NOAA Fisheries, contract no. WE-133F-16-SE-1126.
Binary File Structural Changes
The Binary File structure has changed to accommodate additional information for each unit of data stored. This means that any data generated with PAMGuard Version 2.00.00 and above will not be compatible with older versions of PAMGuard. If you open older data sets with the PAMGuard Viewer the older data will be converted to the new format (see below for details).
The most significant change in the binary file format is the addition of a Unique Data Identifier (UID) to each unit of data. This is intended to aid in offline analysis by making it easier for the user to link what they are seeing on different PAMGuard displays and also to link with any data post processed in Matlab or other custom analysis software. UID’s are also added to PAMGuard database tables.
Converting Old Data
If old data are opened with the PAMGuard viewer they will automatically be converted. For safety, the original binary files will not be overwritten and the new data will be placed in a new folder on your computer with the same path as the old data, but suffixed with ‘_WithUID’, e.g. if your binary data were previously stored in the folder C:MySurveybinarydata the new data will be written to C:MySurveybinarydata_WithUID.
The additional UID column will be added to all database tables and populated with unique values. For data which are stored in both the binary files and in database tables, the same UID’s will be used in both data stores.
New Displays
A new time based scrolling display has been added to PAMGuard which can display multiple types of data on the same time axis. It can for instance be used to display bearings to whistles on a bearing-time type display similar to that commonly used in the click detector. Composite display graphs containing data from more than one detector are also possible. For details, see the PAMGuard help file (Displays / Time Display FX). Note that this display is only available if you are running Java 8 or later.
Event Marking and the Detection Group Localiser
A new system of event marking which can be used both online and offline has been added to PAMGuard. Details are in the PAMGuard help file (Displays/Display Marking). Data can be selected on the Map, the Spectrogram Display and the new Time Display FX in a similar way and sent to other PAMGuard modules. The new marking and data selection system works with the new Detection Group Localiser. The Detection Group Localiser extends the functionality which always existed in the click detector to other types of data (e.g. Whistles) so that they can be grouped and tracked using target motion analysis in a similar way. Details of the Detection Group Localiser are in the PAMGuard help files (Localisation/Detection Group Localiser).
Display Colours
A new system for handling display colours has been implemented across all PAMGuard displays. This gives greater flexibility to the user to control how data units are shown. For instance, you might simply want to show clicks in blue and whistles in green. However, for clicks and whistles that have been assigned to a Detection Group, you may want to colour them by the colour assigned to the group.
Using Old PAMGuard Configurations
Old PAMGuard configurations will work with the new version. However please note the following:
- New classes will be added to the configuration files, so they will no longer work with older PAMGuard versions.
- Display colour options will be lost and most data displayed on the map may default to black. This is due to the above changes to how colours are managed. Changing back to the colours of your choice is relatively simple through the PAMGuard GUI.
