Omniscan 450 FS vs. Oculus M750d

Third Party Products Sonar and Acoustics
1

Wow, Rusty’s explanation of the Omniscan 450 FS was so good it made me think we should have been doing a better job ourselves. But you know as tech geeks, we tend to enjoy building products better than pitching them. No more! We’ve been updating the web site and we dug out the very cool live capture Nick Nothom did last fall comparing the Omniscan 450 FS head to head with the Oculus M750d. In case you don’t know, the Omniscan 450 FS, now on The Reef (finally!) costs $2550 while the Oculus is closer to $30k - and that’s without the mounting bracket. Ha ha. Check out this video and you decide! Omniscan vs Oculus.

And here is the updated Omniscan page on the Cerulean site: Imaging - Cerulean Sonar

5 Likes
2

That’s a neat comparison, but aren’t these two different technologies? The omniscan is a sidescan technology, where the oculus 750d is a multibeam. I’m no acoustician, but that seems like comparing apples and oranges

3

Hi @sbfrf -
While you’re not wrong, some people prefer apples to oranges and vice versa! When the goal is using acoustics to understand the local environment, I think both sonars accomplish the mission, with different methods. The similarity in performance given the huge cost difference is what excites me, as affordability is often the key factor in accessibility!

4

Totally agree with the affordability concept. It’s remarkable data for the price point (big cerulean fan here). I think it’s important to note the lack of explicit ranging on side scan sonars. Typically not a problem for simple shapes in fairly simple environments, but in complex ten Ironmans or finer details a multibeam/ FLS is going to prove superior technology.

Something to also mention might be the cerulean mbes-24(?), a more direct corollary to the oculus 750d

5

Hey the Oculus is a great product. Here are the advantages of each as I see it. Of course I’m biased but these observations are not. :slight_smile:

Oculus advantages:

  • “Video” can be better than a series of essentially still images, even in spite of lesser image quality.
  • Once you get in at close range where you can use the 1.2MHz mode (< ~15m), the Oculus really starts to shine, and the closer you get the better it looks. So under 5m you get great detail, and that’s why so many of the impressive Oculus videos are at super short range.
  • Also at very close range, video is more important because the ROV motion is significant relative to the target.
  • It’s really cool when fish swim into the view!

Omniscan advantages:

  • Longer range capability - his comes from the lower frequency, and the very narrow high gain beam. You will detect and identify targets at longer range.
  • Better image quality overall - beamforming can’t compete with a real beam. I know. I’ve done both. Omniscan 450 FS beam is 0.8 deg.
  • Taller beam - Omniscan’s fan beam is about 50 degrees vertically vs the Oculus 20 degree “vertical aperture.” You can see the effect at the end of the video where the wreck starts to disappear at close range with the Oculus.
  • Situational awareness - Okay, it’s not video, but with SonarView rendering the image mosaic, the situational awareness is superb, and identifying and maneuvering to a stationary target is a piece of cake.
  • It’s so affordable!

So, if you can afford an Oculus, you can definitely afford another $2550, and you should get BOTH! My guess is that you’ll just leave the Oculus in 1.2MHz mode and ignore it until you get very close, and otherwise rely on the better image quality and longer range of the Omniscan.

2 Likes