[DG] [DG11] RealVision 3D data to PC

[Dan-Erik]

I am on the hunt for a cheap alternative to multibeam to collect better depth data than singlebeam does.

RV transducers collect 3D bathymetry data, but for all my looking I can only find it being displayed in the Axiom MFD's.

SIMRAD and Lowrance (and presumably B&G) have TotalScan and StructureScan which can be read in both ReefMaster 2 and SonarWiz software, and probably other software too. I have worked with the Lowrance StructureScan 3D data and it has rather poor accuracy so I would prefer to steer away from this option. From the Axiom screens I have seen, Raymarine RealVision has much better accuracy (perhaps due to the IMU included in the transducer?).

Hummingbird can get data into ReefMaster 2, but I am not sure if they have any other depth data than the single beam, so that the only wider data is the sidescan...

Is there any software compatible with the RV transducers? If I connect an RV transducer to say a Raspberry Pi, how difficult would it be to figure out the communication protocol? Is it all binary, or is it serial? With serial it should be easy to get the data sorted, but I can't find any documentation about data transfers between the transducer and Axiom.

Cheapest multibeam I could find costs around 30'000 €, so the RealVision 3D would be a great option if I could get it to work with transfer of data to PC.