mbprocess — processing swath data

MB-System's mbprocess turns a raw swath file into its processed copy (survey.mb88 → surveyp.mb88): it applies the beam flags saved by the editors, merges navigation, recalculates bathymetry, corrects draft, roll and pitch, and more. What it does to a file is not given on its command line. It is read from that file's parameter file, survey.mb88.par, which MB-System's mbset writes (and which mbedit, mbeditviz and CUBE update as they save their edits).

The dialog runs both programs in iGMT, through GMT's MB-System supplement, so no terminal is needed: it shows what a file's .par says, writes the changes made in the dialog back into it with mbset, and runs mbprocess on every file, its report in the dialog's log.

The dialog

Swath file or datalist. One raw swath file, or a datalist (*.mb-1) of them. A datalist is read by MBIO itself, nested datalists included, and Files lists every file it holds. Format is the MBIO format id; left empty it is taken from the file name (*.mbXX), and -1 means a datalist.

• Process even if up to date (-P): mbprocess normally skips a file whose output is newer than the file, its .par and the files the .par names.
• Strip comments (-N): leave the comment records out of the processed file.
• Verbose (-V): mbprocess's verbose report, in the log.

Edits tab. Apply the bathymetry edits switches the edit save file (EDITSAVEMODE) on or off, for every file in the list. The edit save file is the one each file's .par names, file.esf by default. When a single file is processed it can be changed (EDITSAVEFILE); the files of a datalist each keep their own. Selecting a file in Files shows what its .par says. A file with no .par yet shows what mbprocess would find on its own (its file.esf).

Save .par writes the parameters into each file's .par (mbset) and processes nothing. Process does the same, then runs mbprocess on each file in turn; the busy notice says which file it is on, and the log shows what mbset and mbprocess reported for every file.

A .par is only rewritten when a parameter was changed in the dialog. mbprocess decides whether a file is out of date partly from the age of its .par, so writing the same values again would make every file look out of date. A file with no .par at all gets one first (mbset -L, which looks for the navigation and edit files mbprocess would use by itself): mbprocess does not process a file without one.

The other tabs hold the rest of the .par, each control named after its mbset key in its tooltip (the mbprocess manual documents them all):

Only the keys you change are written, to every file in the list; every other key keeps what each file's own .par says. Changes not yet written stay on screen when another file is selected, until Save .par or Process writes them. Keys the dialog does not show (data cutting, levers, metadata, kluges) are left as the .par has them.

Each control in deps/ui/mbprocess.ui carries its mbset key as a parKey property (with parValues for a list whose values do not start at 0, and parDefault for what it shows when the .par lacks the key), and a "..." button names its edit box in browseFor. So a control can be moved, or another key added, in Qt Designer alone.

mbset reads a file name up to the first space, so files named in the .par cannot contain spaces.