IGODS: An important new tool for managing and visualizing spatial data

Abstract

The Interactive Graphical Ocean Database System (IGODS) is a complete software solution to support studies of ocean, coastal, and inland waters using profiling instrumentation such as a conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) instrument. If you routinely conduct surveys where you are profiling at a set of geographic locations, collecting CTD profiles, and perhaps also collecting water samples for additional analyses, then the IGODS program is an ideal way for you to manage your datasets. IGODS is an easy to use tool that includes functions to optimize the import of data, including both electronically recorded CTD data and discrete sampling results. Final IGODS data files integrate all data for a survey into a single file, for easy archiving. The program provides a wide variety of data analysis and reporting tools. Numerous entities conduct surveys of water bodies as a requirement in a permit for discharge, to monitor for impacts as well as to characterize background conditions. Coastal discharges of sewage effluent, surface effluent discharges, associated with pulp mills or mining operations, river outflows, enclosed bays, estuaries, harbors, and reservoirs, all can have programs either requiring monitoring, or may have environmental issues that require studies and data gathering to support management efforts. How the Program Works IGODS is designed to work directly with the electronic file formats of the leading CTD manufacturer. Immediately after a survey is completed and data files are generated into engineering units, a full survey worth of CTD files can be automatically imported into your survey workspace. You will see a display that incorporates a grid array showing results from all survey sites, and a map of the locations. Profiles of one or multiple variables can be viewed in this display. As soon as data are imported a one page report statistically summarizing all variables can be generated. If wanted, a batch report generator allows options of generating full survey or overlaid data views for one to all parameters. Average depth weighted profiles, comparisons of selected individual profiles, overlay of multiple parameters, X/Y plotting of any variable against another, and calculation of anomaly between any parameter, and the mean profile for that parameter can then be directly plotted. In addition, a very simple, yet versatile plotting interface allows plotting of 2D and 3D transects and constant depth surface representations of data. Finally, in addition to direct output for reports, all the 3D data visualizations produced by IGODS can be exported to Google Earth, and saved as KMZ files. Every survey is defined using a workspace file, which defines station locations, parameters, and ranges for each parameter. Once it is created the workspace file makes managing data from subsequent surveys even easier, and assures consistency in the comparison of statistics and graphical representations between surveys. IGODS is easy to learn and can be easily scaled to either very small or extremely large projects. It can also be used for data without a depth component, for example, benthic species or chemistry data. In projects involving multiple agencies the program makes it easy to distinguish between participating entities. Graphics production is extremely fast and can be produced either singly or in a batch process.