Magnetometer

data processing
using Oasis
montaj: crash
course
Published on Dec 3, 2023

Alexey Dobrovolskiy
CEO & Co-Founder at SPH
Engineering (UgCS)
Published Dec 3, 2023

Following

This article is not a

comprehensive guide to magnetic
data processing using Geosoft
Inc. Oasis montaj. Montaj is as big
as the universe, and having used
it almost every day for the past 5
years, I know 10% of its
functionality or even less.

The power of the Oasis montaj is

also its weak point. New montaj
users spend a lot of time bogged
down in countless menus,
commands, processing options,
and settings. I hope that this
article will help beginners take
their first steps in solving similar
problems - processing
aeromagnetic data for UXO
(unexploded ordnance), tramp
metals, underground utilities,
archeology, etc.

The dataset used in this article

can be downloaded here -

https://app.dronegis.sphengine
ering.com/api/v1/shared_urls/6
56c9c959a6dff6e20f7de42

or by the link below, if previous

one will not work

https://files.ugcs.com/s/5z4sLx
NPtWjNkBc

Data gathered using MagNIMBUS

magnetometer over SENSYS -
Magnetometers & Survey
Solutions test range. I would
again like to say a big thank you to
SENSYS for allowing us to test our
magnetometer here.

More or less the same sequence

can be used for any
magnetometer data available as a
CSV file with coordinates
(longitude and latitude) and total
magnetic field value. For vector
magnetometers, only one
additional step is required to
calculate the total field from the x,
y, z components.

Note. I have intentionally used

only the features available in the
Oasis montaj base license (called
"Oasis montaj Essentials").
Additional license modules will
add a lot of useful features, but
for most real-world use cases the
basic license is sufficient.

Note 2: I am not a geophysicist.

I'm a software developer (in past
:-) and many of the advanced
processing features in Oasis
montaj are too complex for me.
Therefore, I try to use simple and
understandable methods.

Note 3: The article contains > 110

steps/screenshots. It looks like a
very long and complicated
procedure, but in fact data
processing takes only 10 minutes
for me. Manually filling out the
target list takes longer, naturally
in proportion to the number of
anomalies detected. But in any
case, it takes much less time than
excavating targets... It's also good
that most of the repetitive
operations can be scripted, but
this could be the topic of a
separate article.

So, let's begin!

Start montaj & create new project

1.Select Project -> New...

2. Select a folder for the project

and enter a name for the project
file. Montaj will generate dozens
of files, so it's best to create the
project in a directory other than
your original data files.

3. Create database for your data.

Right-click the Database node in
the Project Explorer and select
New Database.

4. Enter a name for the new

database, leaving the rest of the
fields as default, and click OK.

A new empty database window

will appear.

5. Import magnetometer data.

Select Database -> Import ->
ASCII.

6. Make sure the database is

selected and then select the data
files. Our demo dataset contains
two files: 2023-07-06-12-38-33-
quspin.csv and 2023-07-06-13-
12-39-quspin.csv, select both.
Enter template name (you may
reuse it next time for the same
type of data files) and click Create
template.

7. Click Next

8. Next...

9. Finish..

10. Finally, click OK on the Import

ASCII dialog box. The database
will be populated with data from
the files.

Setting projected coordinate

system

Our source data has

latitude/longitude coordinates for
every magnetometer
measurement. Montaj requires
projected coordinate system for
further processing. Here I'll use
UTM - quite popular global
projected coordinate system. As I
often don't know UTM zone for
particular survey area, I use
"mangomap" site to find UTM
zone using address or lat/lon
coordinates.

SENSYS office is in UTM zone

33N:

11. Select Coordinates -> New

Projected Coordinate System.

12. Select Longitude & Latitude

field and click Next

13. Our data is geotagged with

coordinates from GNSS receiver
of the drone, so find & select WGS
84 and click OK.

14. Enter columns (channels in

Oasis montaj terminology) names
for storing projected coordinates
and click Next.

15. Find and select "WGS 84 /

UTM Zone 33N" and click OK.

Now you can see the X and Y

columns (channels) in the
database.

Let's start processing: removing hi-

frequency noise

The presence of high-frequency

noise is typical for airborne
(drone-mounted) magnetometers
due to the proximity of the
drone's motors and electronics,
so the first step in processing is
usually to remove this noise.

16. Right-click "TMI" column

(channel) header and select
"Show Profile". TMI stores raw
data from magnetometer sensor.

17. Graph of TMI values will

appear. As this graph is for entire
data file, you may want to select
part of the graph. Right-click in
the graph area and select Zoom.

18. Select some part of the graph

using rectangular selection tool
and click again. You will see a
rather noisy picture...

19. Select Database Tools ->

Filters -> Low Pass Filter.

20. Select a TMI channel and

enter a name for the new channel
to store the filtered data. I usually
use the name of the original field
with a postfix reflecting the
filter/transformation/algorithm
applied. Since I'm too lazy to write
down the processing sequence,
this approach helps me remember
what I did with the data in this
project after some time.

Enter 100 as cutoff wavelength

and click OK.

The TMI_LPF channel will be

added to the database.

21. Right-click channel name and

select Show Profile.

You will see a graph of the filtered

data. Here you can experiment
with different low pass filter cutoff
values to see how it works. 100 is
a very reasonable value for this
data set collected at a sampling
rate of 500 Hz.

GNSS time lag correction

Data in this dataset is geotagged

using coordinates stream from
GNSS receiver of the drone. As
data comes a long way from GNSS
receiver through autopilot, it's
extensibility port, SPH
Engineering's SkyHub onboard
computer, it will be always some
offset between moments when
magnetometer outputs it's
measurements and when
coordinates will come to the
datalogging code. Magnetometer
data is also comes through few
hardware/software interfaces
inside of the system.

GNSS lag is not a MagNIMBUS

specific issue - it exists in all
complex systems and all
processing software packages,
not just Oasis montaj, address
this issue.

Let's compensate GNSS lag in our

dataset.

22. First step is to visualize (grid)

magnetometer data as-is. Select
Grid and Image -> Gridding ->
Grid Data.

23. Select TMI_LPF channel in

Data to grid field, enter 0.1 as Cell
size, and 1 as Blanking distance.

24. Click Zoom to Box icon and

select anomaly suggested by
arrow.

As you can see, the shape of this

anomaly is “strange.” This GNSS
lag effect is clearly visible in
anomalies that are detected
across multiple survey lines.