Digitize Large Areas of Seabed

Marine Research

CATHX OCEAN offer the gold standard of subsea surveying technology for environmental scientists and researchers.

We offer unique ways of collecting and processing large area, high resolution data through the use of CATHX FDI® (Fast Digital Imaging) and our CLARITY platform.

The New Standard in Subsea Surveys for Marine Research

Uncrewed underwater systems are equipped with advanced sensors, cameras, and data processing capabilities. This enables high-quality data collection, performance of complex tasks, and operation for extended periods without human limitations. However, it does not come without challenges and to advance machine vision and machine learning based automation in the underwater environment, it is imperative to adopt a correct workflow methodology to handle the data (even if manual) at the outset.

To reliably observe and monitor changes in coral reef health over a 10-year period, colour, scale, image sharpness, lighting uniformity and consistency all images need to be standardised. This ensures variances due to contributing factors like different sensors, vehicles, operating, or environmental conditions are removed. Machine Learning algorithms cannot deliver a reliable solution until fundamental issues like these and underwater video and still imagery quality are resolved. While this may appear obvious in hindsight, Cathx Ocean learned this six years ago and we are now positioned to deliver the software solutions to address these challenges. From only this start point, can we look at what information industry needs, as we now have the necessary building blocks that will offer technology solutions at scale.

CATHX FDI® replaces “linear” ways of viewing data such as video with unique 3D digitised deliverables enabling scientists to conduct highly accurate baseline and year on year subsea surveys.

CATHX FDI® allows subsea researchers to identity species and monitor subsea habitats through the use of UHD images, unique 3D colour point clouds, colour, accurate measurement, scale and see the same scene from multiple perspectives.

Our systems for environmental subsea survey start with a simple subsea imaging system ideal for towed frames and smaller vehicles up to larger full systems for larger AUV’s.

CATHX FDI® systems are depth rated up to 6,000m and all data is timestamped, spatially co-registered and geotagged allowing researchers to visually and verifiably track changes in a specific location over time. Combined with our 3D digitisation solutions, we offer researchers and scientists an unrivalled method to visualise, inspect and interact with subsea environmental data.

Types of Environmental Surveys

Environmental surveys are required for most subsea activities across all subsea sectors.

There are, in general, two main types of surveys:

Baseline Surveys

Suitable for:

Habitat Mapping
Species Identification and Classification
Pre-Drilling for Oil & Gas and Offshore Wind
Pre-Construction Surveys for Oil & Gas
Pre-Installation Surveys for Offshore Wind
Pre-Collector Surveys for Deep Sea Minerals

Year-on-Year Surveys

Suitable for:

Continuous Assessment for Marine Habitats
Post-Lay and As-Found Surveys
Cable Surveys
Post Collector Surveys for Deep Sea Minerals
Impact Assessment
Decommissioning for Oil & Gas

The processes for both surveys are ultimately very similar, but the process of analysing the information year-on-year is different. CATHX FDI® data enables year-on-year tracking as all data captured is timestamped, geotagged and spatially co-registered.

Benefits

Conduct High-Speed Large Area Based Seabed Surveys

CATHX FDI® captures large area images at high-speed increasing coverage per unit time by a factor of 10.

Species Identification from UHD Images

CATHX FDI® systems deliver ultra-sharp consistent high-quality large area colour images that are free from motion blur.

Gather Statistically Significant Counts of Marine Life

Enabling better science to achieve statistically significant counts in less time.

Track Year-On-Year Changes

Timestamped, geotagged and spatially co-registered datasets, deliver the ability to visually and verifiably track changes in a specific location over time.

3D Visualisation & Analysis

Unique 3D colour points clouds, generated from Cathx FDI image and laser data, allows scientists to navigate and view data in a 3D spatial environment instead of a 2D linear video.