Patent ID: 7554880

Claim:
A marine survey planning method for execution by a computer system, said method comprising: (a) accessing survey pattern data representing a set of straight survey lines for traversal by a marine vessel to perform a marine survey of a corresponding survey region, said set of straight lines comprising: (i) a set of parallel survey lines corresponding to said survey region; or (ii) a set of survey lines forming a mesh corresponding to said survey region; (b) generating a plurality of partial survey routes for traversal by said marine vessel, each partial survey route including a different subset of plural said straight survey lines and at least one line change portion interconnecting responsive pairs of said survey lines of said subset, said partial survey routes satisfying predetermined constraints; (c) for each partial survey route, generating a set of corresponding extended survey routes by extending the partial survey route to include respective selected remaining ones of said straight survey lines, said extended routes satisfying predetermined constraints; (d) generating penalties for said extended survey routes; (e) selecting a subset of said extended survey routes on the basis of said penalties; and (f) repeating steps (c)-(e), using said subset of extended survey routes as said set of partial survey routes until a predetermined condition is met and then outputting survey route data representing at least one extended survey route.