It is mentioned that the ping has a field of view of 30 degrees. Does it also have another (vertical/horizontal) field of view?
If the field of view is 30 degrees only, then the beam would propagate through a cone bearing an angle same as the field of view.
If there is another field of view, for example 2 degrees vertical and 30 degrees horizontal, the propagation of the beam would be through a part of a sphere with angles 30 and 2 degrees.
Which one of the above visualizations would be correct?
The Ping Sonar’s beam should be roughly conical - it’s not designed to have a narrower beam width in a particular orientation, because it’s intended for measuring distances to anything in front of the sensor. The Ping360 has a narrower horizontal beam width because the sensor can rotate in the horizontal plane, so having a large conical beam for that would result in much less usable horizontal precision.
Note that individual beam width numbers are rough guides that are indicative for practical usage, but actual beam shapes can be quite complex. We’re working on providing a more complete beam plot, but the testing for that isn’t finalised yet
