3. During Cruise Operations

Pre-dive Tools

Tools for preparing equipment and systems before a dive.

• Ocean Mapping Community - Troubleshooting guides for multibeam systems (see Training).

Post-dive Tools

Tools for quick-look analysis and data validation immediately after a dive.

• Programming & Data Analysis - Resources for Python, R, and Jupyter Notebooks for data processing.
• Ocean Data View (ODV) - Visualization for water column data.

Dive Planning

Resources for selecting dive targets and planning vehicle tracks.

• Geospatial Analysis & Mapping - Training for QGIS and GMT.
• GeoMapApp & GMRT - Visualization tools for global bathymetry.

Data Files and Access Expectations

This section provides links to resources on data access policies and expectations for oceanographic data.

Data Policy Resources

• IOC Oceanographic Data Exchange Policy - The official policy from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO.

At Sea Software

Software systems for real-time operations and data management.

Data Acquisition and Vessel Management

Open-source platforms for research vessel operations:

• OpenRVDAS - Open Research Vessel Data Acquisition System: modular framework for reading, transforming, and logging sensor data (GitHub)
• OpenVDM - Ship-wide data management platform for organizing files from multiple acquisition systems into unified cruise packages (used on R/V Falkor, E/V Nautilus, R/V Endeavor). A 7-part video series explaining the operation of OpenVDM is available on YouTube.

Event Logging Systems

Event logging for dives and vehicle operations:

• Sealog - Open-source event logging system with separate clients for vessels (sealog-client-vessel) and underwater vehicles (sealog-client-vehicle)
• Digital Edge EdgeDVR - Commercial ROV logging: automated dive, video, photo logs with timestamps
• SubC DVR with Overlay - Commercial: data logging with sensor overlay capabilities
• EIVA NaviSuite - Commercial sensor management and real-time operational visualization
• Oceanbotics SubNav - Commercial integrated OS for ROV operations

Annotation Tools

Video and image annotation platforms for marine biology and oceanographic observations:

• Tator - Web-based video analytics platform for drawing annotations, labeling frame ranges, and tracking objects (developed by CVision AI, used by National Geographic and NOAA)
• BIIGLE - Web-based image and video annotation for biodiversity research with AI-assisted tools (MAIA, Magic SAM) to reduce annotation time by ~50%
• SeaTube - Ocean Networks Canada's ROV video annotation system for real-time and archived video (Documentation)
• FathomNet - MBARI's open-source database with ML-ready annotated underwater imagery (160k+ localizations, 1.4k classes) for training AI models
• FathomVerse - Citizen science game for labeling ocean imagery to train AI (15M+ annotations from 14k players in 142 countries)

Data Turnaround