Displaying side looking sonar with television and video disc recorder

A new technique has been developed whereby the outputs from a towed Side Looking Sonar can be presented as a real time display in a standard television format. The system uses a video disc recorder and short-term storage registers to scan convert the sonar data. The sonar data is obtained at a low frequency and is changed to a rate suitable for television. The television picture displays a view of the ocean bottom, in a "moving window" format. The result is a flicker-free, moving display of the sonar data.