Spectrogram Software

While it is not needed to operate your DolphinEar, the software we provide with every hydrophone turns it into a powerful sound analysis tool when used with a Windows PC

A powerful tool: Each DolphinEAR comes with a free software to produce your own SPECTROGRAMS. It allows you to ‘see’ underwater sounds and analyze their content. It’s a great program written by Richard Horne and generously made available to us for inclusion with DolphinEAR. It produces graphics similar to the type of ‘waterfall displays’ used by SONAR operators on U.S. Navy Nuclear Submarines to detect and indentify underwater sounds.

WHAT’S A SPECTROGRAM?

Spectrum images reveal the delicate detail of underwater sounds. ‘Most ordinary sounds are complex combinations of individual frequency components or harmonics with a wide range of frequency and intensity. A spectrogram is simply a plot of the frequency components of such an audio signal as a function of time. In this Spectrogram program, digital audio recordings (.WAV format) are analyzed to produce a plot of frequency versus time, with harmonic intensity represented by a variable color scale. These spectrograms reveal the fascinating hidden frequency structure of audio signals and can be used for identifying or classifying particular sounds.’

Look at the samples in our ‘LISTEN’ section – all of which were processed with this software! Frequency resolution is typically 20 hz or less! Placing the crosshair cursor over any point on the spectrogram shows time, frequency, and level data in a special ‘data’ window. If desired, you can also save your spectrogram sample as a set of data points for analysis by other programs.

REAL TIME DISPLAYS:

The software allows you to display underwater sounds in real time, or from previously recorded tapes. You can also record ‘digital recordings’ of underwater sounds and save them on your computer hard disk. These features provide many possibilities. It is not necessary to carry your computer into the hostile marine environment to see carry on spectrographic analysis. You can record sounds on a simple audio cassette recorder, DAT, Camcorder or other sound recorder, then play the tape back into the computer for analysis at a later time. You can also watch realtime display indefinitely and start a digital recording when something of interest is heard.

REQUIREMENTS:

OPERATING SYSTEM: ALL Windows operating systems (32 and 64 bit)
This software is well written and small in size so it can be used on virtually any PC going all the way back to Windows 95.  Our techs tell us that this can be useful if you are taking a computer out on a boat where it may suddenly stop working if it gets wet. Since this software runs on old computers (as well as brand new ones) you can take several cheap laptops rather than risk your expensive computer equipment.