Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway

Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

Title:

Note No.:
22001

Short description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation

System
Client

Project no.

Client Reference:

Availability

Author

Dato/Date
03.07.02
ISBN

Bengt Johnny Tynes /Svein Erik Aasen

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Versjon/Version:

Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway
Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

Table of contents
System overview....................................................................................................3
Database ............................................................................................................5
Data reception ....................................................................................................5
Data presentation ...............................................................................................5
Quality checking ..............................................................................................5
User-friendly interface............................................................................................8
Installation of the system .......................................................................................9

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway
Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

System overview
The OCEANOR Data Reception and presentation system consists of software
running on a central server, containing the database and management software,
and PC workstation software for presentation of the measured data. The
necessary communication equipment for receiving data from the buoys, together
with software for this task is also included.

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway
Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

Figure 1 Schematic overview of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway
Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

Database
A database must be established on the server. This database is used for storage
of all measured data and meta data. The meta data provides further information
about the measured data, parameter type, unit, serial number of the sensor etc.
The data will be stored in the database in an efficient format.

Data reception
The data transmitted via one of the proposed communication links will be
received by software running on the server. This enables direct two-way
communication (not for Argos and Goes) with the buoys via the satellite system.
Software on the server will collect the data from the buoy network and put it into
the database. A transmission log will enable easy check of the systems
performance. Also, for those communication links that support two-way
communication, methods and tools for reconfiguring and restarting of the buoys
from the server will be provided.

Data presentation
Advanced and user friendly analysis and presentation of the data is performed by
the OceanInfo program. Data may be exported to other databases and to other
formats by use the data export program PffExport. It is also easy to set-up the
system to make real-time data from the system available on the Internet (or an
Intranet). A schematic view of the software system is shown below.
For further information on data presentation, read the OceanInfo users manual
and the PffExport users manual.

Quality checking
Data quality-checking and removal of erroneous data may be done both in a
tabular view and in a graphic view in the OceanInfo program. Suspicious data are
marked as not valid in the database and are thus not deleted. In addition to this
method, two other methods exist for filtering out unwanted data:
Using select-criterias, by selecting upper and lower limits for the
parameters
Setting values for Max/Min and exclude directly in the database
See the OceanInfo users manual for further information on quality checking.

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway
Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

It should be noted that all of the communication methods use error checking
packet protocols, which retransmits a packet in case of a faulty packet. Also,
error checking is included in Oceanors proprietary data message format. This
format is extremely compact and enables large savings in terms of data
transmission costs.

The data presentation program, OceanInfo, will present the data in a number of
ways to the user. This includes:

Time Series Graphs

Gamma spectrum graphs
Progressive Vector Graphs
Rose Vector Graphs
Gumbel and Weibull graphs
Histograms
TS-graphs (SaltTemperature graphs)
Data tables

OceanInfo also provides statistical analysis methods and presentation of these

results. This includes
Calculation of average, maximum, minimum and standard deviation values and
use of these as alternative input to the raw measurements into the different
analysis methods and graphs
Extreme Analysis including Gumbel and Weibull statistics
Regression Analysis
An example of the presentation is given in Figure 1

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway
Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

Figure 2 Example of the OceanInfo presentation system

Figure 3 The data export program PffExport

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway
Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

User-friendly interface
The programs are MS-WINDOWS 32 bit programs. MS-WINDOWS is the
current standard for the most user friendly man-machine interface. Anyone who
knows how to operate an MS-WINDOWS program will easily be able to operate
the PC programs of SEAWATCH without any initial training. Even users who are
not familiar with MS-WINDOWS will soon feel comfortable with these programs.
Specific PC knowledge is not required. All operations are intuitive in use, and online help systems are available.

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway
Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

Installation of the system

1)

Install the communication program for receiving data. Depending on the

type of communication, one of the following communication programs are
installed:
ULink. When using radio communication
TLlink. When using modem communication
OLink. For e-mail data reception via the ORBCOMM system, using
Microsoft Exchange Server
PopLink. For e-mail data reception via the ARGOS system
Ilink 2.0. For Inmarsat communication
Configure your system to start the communication program when the
computer starts.

2)

Install the meta-data import program CfgImport. Import the meta-data files
to generate an Microsoft Access database. The configuration-files are
Xml-files. These files are setup files for the OCEANOR datalogger and is
generated during the datalogger setup.

3)

DAO drivers need to be installed on the system in order to run PffExport

and OceanInfo. If Microsoft Access 97 is installed properly on the system,
the DAO drivers are already installed. If there are no DAO drivers
presently installed on the computer, run DAO35.exe from the DAO
directory of the CD-ROM.

4)

Install data presentation programs ordered. These include:

OceanInfo
PffExport

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System

Oceanographic Company of Norway ASA

Address: Pir-Senteret, N-7462 Trondheim, Norway
Telephone: +47-73 54 52 00, Telefax: +47-73 54 52 01
URL: http://www.oceanor.no E-mail: oceanor@oceanor.no

10

Description of the OCEANOR Data Reception and Presentation System