MB-System is an open source software consisting of programs that manipulate, process, list, or display swath sonar bathymetry, amplitude, and sidescan data. MB-System is written in the C programming language, uses the graphical utilities of Motif and OpenGL, and is portable to a wide variety of UNIX platforms. It is released under the GNU General Public License.

The core of MB-System is the input/output library (MBIO). This library allows programs to work transparently with a number of multibeam sonar formats.

A Brief History of MB-System

David W. Caress and Dale N. Chayes developed MB-System at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University mainly through funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Also, SeaBeam Instruments Inc., a manufacturer of multibeam sonars, contributed significantly to development of MB-System.

Originally, the NSF mandate was to provide a standard set of generic tools for processing and displaying of swath sonar data used in NSF-supported projects; however, MB-System has also become widely used in the international marine geological community.

Download MB-System

MB-System can be downloaded as a zipped tarball from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.  Current versions of the source code and cookbook are also mainained through SVN.

Information About MB-System

For more information on MB-System, refer to the links below.

Short list of capabilities
List of MB-System programs and links to manual pages
List of supported swath data formats
MB-System discussion group