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A new version of our ODAS web application is available

We're announcing today that our ODAS web application is available after a complete redesign.

As we've mentioned in a previous blog post, the communication means between the RV Belgica and our servers in Ostend and Brussels have been recently upgraded and we're now getting updates from the ship in near-real time.

So, what's ODAS exactly?

ODAS stands for Onboard Data Aquisition System. The system is composed of an array of sensors onboard of the RV Belgica which monitor constantly several parameters in the water and the weather. These measurements are collected and transmitted to the OD Nature Measurement Services Ostend (MSO) via a satellite link about every 10 minutes, where they are saved in the ODAS database combined with information about the position, heading and speed of the RV Belgica at the time of each measurement.

A visualisation tool existed on the mumm.ac.be web site for many years. It served us well and was upgraded a few times during its lifetime. But with better and more frequent communication from the ship came the time to overhaul the system in terms of coding, interface, data access and storage.

The most significant changes are in the way data is received and stored, and in how the web application is constructed. In terms of user interface, ship tracks data are presented per campaign. There is a fully searchable index, so looking for a specific campaign ID, date, harbour or theme is very easy and fast. On the map, information about point measurements are available at an interval of an hour approximatively. A table displays available measurements every 10 minutes, despite the possible availability of higher resolution data stored in our databases.

Please note that the ODAS data has not been subjected to human quality control and is for informational purposes only.

Extra features

The RV Belgica home page now displays information about the ship's last received position together with a few of the parameters measured by ODAS (e.g.ship heading and speed, wind speed and direction, water depth and temperature). A webcam has been installed on the bridge and transmits a new image every two minutes.

The RV Belgica web site is available in English, français and Nederlands

The post A new version of our ODAS web application is available was last updated on 17 March 2015
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