...
The steps above with option available are tuneable by the user as detailed in the data product options below. The ADCP.processingComments field in both Nortek and RDI MAT file data products provides the user with a log of the decisions made in this processing flow. The MAT files (RDI only) also has a structure called ADCP.processingOptions that details what options the user choose and what options were actually applied, as some options, such as the error velocity screening threshold are not always applicable. See the data product options and MAT file format sections below for more information. This is complicated, contact us for help.
Data Verification
As noted earlier, the ultimate requirement for the ADCP data products is that they replicate the results of the manufacturer's software. We test against the manufacturers' software to verify the data at every software release (regression testing). The testing suite includes manual and automated testing where the output of the manufacturer's software is compared to the data products and where data products are compared to the captured files from the previous release. The test suite is regularly updated for any new scenarios. Improvements in the test procedure are also made as needed. In addition to testing the software, there has a been a significant effort to insure the metadata, heading in particular, is correct. These steps include careful measurement and documentation at deployment time, verifying and vetting ROV heading sensors, comparing data to nearby ADCPs, comparing results between various processing methods, and perhaps the best check is to compare the currents with the known/modelled tides. Contact us for for information on the testing procedures and metadata verification.
...
In all, the results from RDI winADCP, and Nortek software will match the processed data products. In addition, the original data, particularly the Beam co-ordinate data is always available in the RDI and Nortek raw binary files and as data.velocity (Nortek) and adcp.velocity (RDI) in the MAT files. The processingComments will completely describe the steps applied to produce the u,v,w processed velocities. In addition to the code snippets above, we are happy to supply more code, collaborate on that code, etc. We are interested in collaborating on QAQC processes, data verification, processing, analysis and research. Contact us if if you have any questions.