MB-System is an open source software package for the processing and display of bathymetry and backscatter imagery data derived from multibeam, interferometry, and sidescan sonars. The source code for MB-System is freely available (for free) by anonymous ftp (including "point and click" access through these web pages). A complete description is provided in web pages accessed through links below.

MB-System was originally developed at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (L-DEO) and is now a collaborative effort between the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and L-DEO. The National Science Foundation has provided the primary support for MB-System development since 1993. The Packard Foundation has provided significant support through MBARI since 1998. Additional support has derived from SeaBeam Instruments (1994-1997), NOAA (2002-2004), and others.

• MB-System 5.3.1955 Now Available (16 May 2012)NEW!!!
  • This is now the current release of MB-System.
  • For more information read the MB-System 5.3.1955 README file.
  • The MB-System 5.3.1955 source distribution is available for download.
  • The MB-System Subversion source code archive can also be accessed directly. The third number in the release identifier indicates the corresponding revision level in the archive. Users can, if desired, export old releases from the archive using this number.

• MB-System fbt file format (and documentation thereof...) changed (16 May 2012)NEW!!!
  • As of release 5.3.1955, the file format used for "fast bathymetry" or fbt files in MB-System has changed.
  • In particular, the navigation, sonar depth, and related parameters are now stored as binary double rather than scaled binary short integer values, with the result that cm-scale surveys can now be usefully processed with MB-System.
  • This format is also known as MBF_MBLDEOIH, or format 71.
  • Documentation of both the new and old format, along with directions and source code to enable the integration of a third-party bathymetry editor with MB-System, can be found in this updated document.

• MB-System Proposal Withdrawn, to be Resubmitted (March 10, 2012)
  • On February 15, 2012, we submitted a proposal to the Marine Geology and Geophysics Program, Ocean Sciences Division, U.S. National Science Foundation requesting a five-year renewal of funding for MB-System support and development.
  • On March 6, 2012, we withdrew this proposal because NSF indicated that it would not be funded, regardless of reviews. As explained in a letter to the PIs of the many affected proposals:

  "the MG&G program does not have sufficient funds in the remainder
  of FY 12 for new grants that would be made as “continuing awards”
  (see details below). Proposals in this category are primarily those of
  high expense specific to the MGG program budget. PIs of proposals
  in this category were contacted last week and given the option of
  delaying the review of their proposal until the Aug 15th target date
  when new funds will become available. Doing so would require
  withdrawal and resubmission of the proposal prior to Aug 15th."

  • We certainly intend to resubmit this proposal in August.
  • In the meantime, feel free to look at the submitted (and withdrawn) proposal and provide any comments and suggestions you may have. We have five months to improve our case for funding.
  • This proposal is structured as two linked, collaborative proposals from MBARI (Principle Investigator David Caress) and Lamont-Doherty (Principle Investigator Dale Chayes).
  • The proposal title was, and will be: "Collaborative Research: Development and Support of the MB-System Software Package for Processing and Display of Swath Mapping Sonar Data".
  • The proposal text is here: 2012 MB-System NSF Proposal
  • Supplementary information supporting the proposal is here: Supplementary Information for the 2012 MB-System NSF Proposal., and includes:
    • MB-System user community size estimate.
    • Collaboration letters.
    • Support letters.
    • Publications citing MB-System

• MB-System on Facebook (February 29, 2012)
  • On February 9, Christian Ferreira established an MB-System page on Facebook.
  • As of leap day, 35 Facebook users "like" this page.

• MB-System Proposal Submitted (February 29, 2012)
  • On February 15, 2012, we submitted a proposal to the Marine Geology and Geophysics Program, Ocean Sciences Division, U.S. National Science Foundation requesting a five-year renewal of funding for MB-System support and development.
  • This was structured as two linked, collaborative proposals from MBARI (Principle Investigator David Caress) and Lamont-Doherty (Principle Investigator Dale Chayes).
  • The proposal title is: "Collaborative Research: Development and Support of the MB-System Software Package for Processing and Display of Swath Mapping Sonar Data".
  • The proposal text is here: 2012 MB-System NSF Proposal
  • Supplementary information supporting the proposal is here: Supplementary Information for the 2012 MB-System NSF Proposal., and includes:
    • MB-System user community size estimate.
    • Collaboration letters.
    • Support letters.
    • Publications citing MB-System

• MB-System Planning Meeting (February 10, 2012)
  • On January 17-18, 2012, we held an MB-System Planning Meeting at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory to develop the priorities for our NSF proposal (to be submitted on February 15, 2012.
  • This was a small meeting involving the core MB-System development team, users that have substantially contributed to the project in recent years, and representatives of organizations that have expressed interest in parallel development efforts contributing to MB-System
  • The goals were to:
    1. Define priorities and tasks for the next five year MB-System project to be proposed to NSF-OCE in February by Caress and Chayes.
    2. Define priorities and tasks for MB-System related development efforts by other groups.
  • The details are here: Notes of and results from the MB-System planning meeting.

• Estimate of the MB-System User Community Size (February 10, 2012)
  • For a variety of reasons, we need to document the existence of a significant MB-System user community.
  • We have estimated the number of organizations using MB-System during 2011 through a combination of Discussion List membership and source distribution download statistics.
  • We identified 187 user organizations, including 41 academic institutions in the U.S. and 64 elsewhere in the world, 11 U.S. government agencies and 39 government agencies in other countries, and 32 commercial organizations.
  • The details are here: MB-System User Community Estimate from Downloads.

• Request for Letters of Support for MB-System Proposal to NSF (January 10, 2012)
  • Our previous five year, National Science Foundation funded project to develop and support MB-System ended last summer. We will be submitting a new proposal for a five-year project to the Marine Geology and Geophysics program of the Ocean Sciences Division of NSF.
  • We request letters of support from MB-System users to be included in an appendix of our proposal. Please email these to the MB-System Discussion List or to us (Dave Caress and Dale Chayes) directly.
  • The previous proposal can be found here. We expect that the scale of support requested will be similar, but that the priorities and tasks will have evolved since 2006.
  • Our proposal deadline is February 15, 2012.
  • Since we make our proposals openly available, please expect that these letters will be public documents.
  • We welcome comments regarding priorities for MB-System development and aspects of our efforts that need improvement. Please make such comments as posts to the MB-System Discussion List.

• HYSWEEP HSX Format Support Funded by Ocean Floor Geophysics (10 January 2012)
  • Ocean Floor Geophysics of Vancouver, Canada, has funded the development of an MB-System i/o module for multibeam data in the HYSWEEP HSX format.
  • This capability is available beginning with the 5.3.1917 release distribution. HYSWEEP HSX has an MBIO format id of 201.
  • Also included is a new preprocessing utility for data in the HSX format, named mbhysweeppreprocess.
  • At this time, the new code has only been tested with respect to data collected using the combination of an R2Sonic multibeam and an Octans gyro/MRU. There will undoubtably be fixes and future development required to successfully support HSX data generally.

• MB-System, GMT, and netCDF RPM Distributions Available from Scripps (December 1, 2010)
  • The Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Shipboard Technical Support group maintains a repository of open source software RPM distributions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS Linux.
  • This repository includes both source and binary distributions of MB-System, GMT, and netCDF that can be accessed using the yum utility. The MB-System RPMs require the GMT and netCDF RPMs, but have no other external dependencies.
  • Thanks to Frank Delahoyde for pointing us at these repositories.
  • This repository can be found at:
    
    http://sts.ucsd.edu/repos/centos-5/local
  • The SIO-STS gpg signing key is
    
    http://sts.ucsd.edu/repos/centos-5/local/RPM-GPG-KEY-ST

• MB-System Code Repository Now Publically Accessible (January 7, 2010)
  • The MB-System source code repository is now publically accessible through a web interface.
  • Users can download individual files or the entire MB-System development structure.
  • This repository always reflects the current state of MB-System development.

• Update to Integrating Third-Party Bathymetry Editors with MB-System (December 31, 2009)
• This updated document addresses the issue of integrating a third-party, proprietary source bathymetry editor with the GPL-licensed MB-System processing environment.
• In particular, the edit event definition and related source code have been augmented to handle data from multiple head sonars that produce multiple pings with identical timestamps.
  
• For the most part, integration of a bathymetry editor with MB-System can be accomplished using executable programs that are part of the MB-System distribution, and therefore freely available to be installed by users independent of any proprietary software.
  
• However, we also include some code derived from the MB-System distribution that we will separately release under the Lessor GNU Public License (LGPL), allowing those functions to be linked with proprietary software.

• Directions for Installing GMT and MB-System on Ubuntu (June 14, 2009)
• On April 18, 2009, Marcel Croon posted instructions for installing GMT and MB-System on Ubuntu systems to the MB-System Discussion List.
• A slightly edited version of these instructions are available here.
• Thanks Marcel!

• MB-System Packaged for MacOS X and Poseidon Linux (December 31, 2008)
  • This isn't really new, but we haven't previously highlighted these efforts to package MB-System for easy installation.
  • Since 2004, Kurt Schwehr of CCOM/JHC has maintained a Fink Project MB-System package for MacOs X. Users must specify use of "unstable" packages to make the MB-System package available.
  • Since July 2008, MB-System has been included in Poseidon Linux, the "Scientific GNU/Linux". Poseidon is an Ubuntu Linux based distribution including a selection of open source software packages intended to support scientific research. In particular, it offers several specific tools in the areas of GIS, 3D Visualization, Mathematics, Statistics and several other fields of research.

• MB-System Discussion List has changed (May 16, 2008)
  • As of May 11, MBARI changed the list server hardware and software that hosts the MB-System Disccussion List
  • The MB-System Discussion List URL has changed to http://listserver.mbari.org/sympa/info/mbsystem
  • Anyone can read the list archives. Click on "Archives" in the web interface linked above.
  • Only members can post to the list. Join the list via the web interface linked above.
  • List members can post via the web interface or by emailing to mbsystem@mbari.org

• MB-System Beta Distributions Now Linked in Web Pages (May 16, 2008)
  • Beta Distributions of MB-System are generated much more frequently than "official" releases, mostly because we have difficulty keeping the documentation concurrent with the code development.
  • The sections of these web pages relating to downloads now note that beta distributions are frequently updated, and include a link to the most recent beta distribution.
  • Version 5.1.1 will be released as soon as reasonable documentation is completed for the new tools mbgrdviz and mbeditviz.

• MB-System NSF Proposal Funded (July 26, 2006)
  • The Marine Geology and Geophysics Program of the NSF has approved our request for another five years of funding for MB-System development and support.
  • We thank all of the MB-System users who provided letters of support for inclusion in this proposal. Your time and effort are appreciated!!
  • The proposal can be read here
  
  
• Update to MB-System Cookbook Now Available (January 14, 2006)
  • We are developing an MB-System Cookbook to provide tutorial style documentation for MB-System Version 5. An updated draft of this cookbook by Val Schmidt, Dale Chayes, and David Caress is being made available here along with the data samples used to illustrate the use of our software (see links below).
  
  
• First Visualization-Aided MB-System Tool Released (February 20, 2005)
  • MB-System version 6 is already under development. Our intent is to embed a 3D vizualization capability into tools used for tasks such as project management, bathymetry editing, and patch tests. The first tool using this capability is part of the 5.0.6 release. This program is called MBgrdviz, and allows simple 2D and 3D vizualization of GMT grids. Some screen dumps are available here.

• Integrating Third-Party Bathymetry Editors with MB-System (October 6, 2004)
• This document addresses the issue of integrating a third-party bathymetry editor with the MB-System processing environment.
  
• Since some editors may have licensing and distribution schemes (e.g. commercial with source held proprietary) that are inconsistent with the GNU Public License (GPL) applied to MB-System, the suggestions presented here do not involve direct use of GPL licensed MB-System source code.
• For the most part, this can be accomplished using executable programs that are part of the MB-System distribution, and therefore freely available to be installed (but not sold) by third parties.
  
• However, we also include some code derived from the MB-System distribution that we will separately release under the Lessor GNU Public License (LGPL), allowing those functions to be linked with commercial software.


• Draft MB-System Cookbook Now Available (December 5, 2003)
  • We are developing an MB-System Cookbook to provide tutorial style documentation for MB-System Version 5. A preliminary (incomplete) draft of this cookbook by Val Schmidt, Dale Chayes, and David Caress is being made available here along with the data samples used to illustrate the use of our software (see links below).
  
  
• New MB-System Discussion Email List Established (December 5, 2003)
  • We have established an MB-System discussion email list to facillitate communication among MB-System developers and users see links below (see links below).
  
  
• SURF format API released under GPL by ATLAS Hydrographics GmbH (October 18, 2001)
  • ATLAS Hydrographics GmbH of Bremen, Germany, has released the source code used to read and write swath mapping sonar data in the SURF format as open source under the GNU Public License (GPL).
  • ATLAS markets a number of widely used multibeam sonars, including the Fansweep 15 and Fansweep 20 multibeams for shallow water surveying and the Hydrosweep MD-2 and Hydrosweep DS-2 multibeams for mid- to deep-water surveying.
  • The ATLAS HYDROMAP processing package stores Fansweep and Hydrosweep data in the SURF format. A large amount of seafloor mapping data worldwide is archived in this format.
  • We will be adding support for the SURF format in MB-System soon (as time and resources allow).

• MB-System NSF Proposal Funded(April 6, 2001)
  • The Marine Geology and Geophysics Program of the NSF has approved our request for another five years of funding for MB-System development and support.
  • We thank all of the MB-System users who provided letters of support for inclusion in this proposal. Your time and effort are appreciated!!
  • We also thank Dr. David Epp, our NSF Program Manager, and the mail reviewers and panel members who reviewed our latest proposal.

MB-System is under active development and is updated periodically. This (usually) results in improved performance and additional capabilities, but often means that the documentation (including these web pages) lag somewhat behind the actual software. Please bear with us and send your comments and suggestions.

The MB-System source code distribution and related files, including data samples, are available by anonymous ftp to

ftp.ldeo.columbia.edu/pub/MB-System/

Click here to download (by ftp) the most recent MB-System source code release.

To find further documentation about downloading the MB-System source code distribution go to:

How to get and install MB-System

An MB-System package is available for MacOS X through the Fink Project. Users must specify use of "unstable" packages to make the MB-System package available.

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Shipboard Technical Support group maintains a repository of open source software RPM distributions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS Linux. This repository includes both source and binary distributions of MB-System, GMT, and netCDF that can be accessed using the yum utility. The MB-System RPMs require the GMT and netCDF RPMs, but have no other external dependencies. This repository can be found at:

http://sts.ucsd.edu/repos/centos-5/local

The SIO-STS gpg signing key is

http://sts.ucsd.edu/repos/centos-5/local/RPM-GPG-KEY-STS

MB-System is included in Poseidon Linux, the "Scientific GNU/Linux". Poseidon is an Ubuntu Linux based distribution including a selection of open source software packages intended to support scientific research. In particular, it offers several specific tools in the areas of GIS, 3D Visualization, Mathematics, Statistics and several other fields of research.

Instructions for installing GMT and MB-System on Ubuntu systems are available here.

The MB-System source code is archived and managed using Subversion, an open source version control system. The MB-System and MB-Cookbook Subversion repositories can be browsed through a web interface at:

http://svn.ilab.ldeo.columbia.edu/

 

The MB-System repository is at:

http://svn.ilab.ldeo.columbia.edu/listing.php?repname=MB-System

The entire repository, or individual files, can be downloaded through this web interface. Clicking the the link above to bring up the WebSVN interface showing the most recent revision to the MB-System code base, along with a list of paths including "branches", "tags", and "trunk". To download the entire code base, click on the "Download" link to the right of "trunk". To browse the structure and download individual files, click on the "trunk" link. Users can build MB-System using this downloaded code base, but should note that the repository stores a number of files that are not included in the MB-System distributions.

The complete web page documentation distributed with MB-System can be accessed here:

Current Release:

MB-System 5.3.1955 Documentation
• What's new in MB-System version 5
• Short list of capabilities
• List of MB-System programs and links to manual pages
• List of supported swath data formats
• How to get and install MB-System
• Frequently Asked Questions (and answers)
• Future MB-System development plans
• Copyright and Caveat
  

The MB-System Cookbook tutorial documentation by Val Schmidt, Dale N. Chayes, and David W. Caress is available both as web pages and as a downloadable pdf document:

MB-System 5.0 Cookbook web pages

MB-System 5.0 Cookbook pdf file

A few swath data format specifications made available to us can be viewed here:

Data format specifications from sonar vendors and other swath mapping sonar links.

Documents concerning how mapping sonars work can be viewed here:

Some local and linked pages discussing how mapping sonars work.

We maintain an MB-System discussion email list to facillitate communication among MB-System developers and users. We encourage users with questions and/or problems to use this list rather than emailing the developers directly. One must subscribe to the list in order to post messages, but the message archive is publically viewable and searchable over a web interface. The maximum message size in this list is 100K.

The web interface to the list is at:

http://listserver.mbari.org/sympa/info/mbsystem

To subscribe to the list go to:

http://listserver.mbari.org/sympa/subscribe/mbsystem

To read the archives go to:

http://listserver.mbari.org/sympa/arc/mbsystem

We maintain a second, very low traffic list of email addresses which is used solely for providing notification of major updates. If you would like to be notified when new releases are available, but do not wish to join the discussion list described above, please send an email message to:

majordomo@ldeo.columbia.edu

with a single line in the body of the message that says:

subscribe mbsystem-l

to be automatically added to the announcement list.