Patent Document ID: 8854920
Application ID: 13603805
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of volumetric rendering of three dimensional sonar data sets of relating to an object immersed in a fluid, comprising: a) partitioning a volume of space containing at least part of the object by establishing a set of three dimensional bins occupying the volume of space, wherein the bins are arranged on a large plurality of planes stacked in a z direction, and wherein the bins of each of the large plurality of planes are arrayed with a large plurality of bins in each of x and y directions, where x, y and z are mutually orthogonal spatial coordinates; b) directing an n th ping from a source towards the object immersed in the fluid, the ping directed at a time t n , wherein a ping is pulse of sound waves with pulse time τ p ; then c) receiving sound waves reflected from the object with a two dimensional sonar receiving array, wherein the sonar receiving array communicates signals measuring the reflected sound waves to a computer readable recording device; then d) processing the signals measuring the reflected sound waves to assign values of at least reflected intensity to each ping point of an n th set of ping points arranged in a three dimensional array in the volume of space containing the object, wherein each ping point has an associated resolution depending on the range of the ping point from the detector, and wherein the values are recorded in a computer readable media; e) adding a portion of the values assigned to each ping point to one or more bins according to a criterion; then f) relatively moving the object and the two dimensional sonar receiving array, and repeating steps a) to e) a plurality of N of times t 1. .. t N ; g) calculating an image for display on an image display device from the binned values recorded in step e).