MESA 16.x Release Notes

Welcome to MESA Version 16.3.  There are a few important changes (highlighted in red) that you should read.  

1. There are some database format changes for MESA Version 16.2 projects.  Once a project has been saved in Version 16.2 you should not re-open projects in earlier versions of MESA or you will risk corrupting your projects.

2. The colorscales and configuration files are now installed in C:\ProgramData\GreenMountain\colorscales and C:\ProgramData\GreenMountain\config respectively.  The first time that MESA 16.2 is launched, the user preferences will be updated to point to the new colorscale and configuration file directories.  If you have custom colorscales or configuration files, you can either reset the user preferences to their previous locations or you can copy your custom files to the new directories.

3. The release notes will appear when you start MESA as long as Display Release Notes on Startup is set to Yes in the user preferences.  The user preferences are also used to set the default data directory for MESA projects.

Version 16.3.5 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Fixed an issue with the calculation of inverse templates (sources firing into a given receiver).  This solved potential problems transferring MESA geometries to Gator.

Version 16.3.4 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Improved the performance of the Bin Attribute Analysis window.

2. Fixed multiple issues with elevations, shot depths, receiver depths, and water depths when exporting marine geometries to SPS.

Version 16.3.3 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Fixed an issue with inverse templates not exporting to Marlin properly.

Version 16.3.2 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Added an option for decimating hydrophone positions in the P1/90 offshore export.

2. When importing xy-coordinate information from external ASCII files, there is now an option to handle situations where the file is missing coordinate data for one or more stations.  You now have the option to temporarily assign a coordinate of (0,0) for any missing data in the file instead of simply cancelling the import.

3. Fixed a display issue in Edit Templates mode in which the last source in the project could not be selected to view its template.

4. Fixed a problem reading in P1/90 files from simultaneous shooting geometries.

5. Fixed an issue with the persistence of the number of station number digits when exporting MESA geometries to SimSurvey and Marlin.

6. Fixed a problem with the calculation of hydrophone positions when creating towed steamer geometries by shooting existing marine sail polylines.

7. Fixed an issue in which some source points weren’t getting re-assigned cable configurations when re-shooting existing marine surveys.

8. Added the numbering options dialog box to the marine sail line generation tool.

9. Added an option to the SEGP1 and SPS export dialog boxes for resetting the filename prefix to the name of the currently loaded database.

Version 16.3.1 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Fixed a problem loading pre-version 16 MESA databases as additional projects.  There was an inconsistency with the format of the stored datum transformation which prevented additional projects from being loaded simultaneously.

2. Added the run in/out capability for geometries created using marine sail polylines.

3. Rotation/translation functions are now accessible prior to the creation of sources and/or receivers.  Previously, a project needed sources or receivers for the translation options to be active.

4. Added support for reading receiver attributes from Gator version 2.0 MFA files.

5. Fixed an issue launching SimSurvey when special characters are included in the path name.

Version 16.3.0 Enhancements and Fixes

1.  MESA now includes WMS data from OnTerra-MapSavvy.  This service includes Bing Maps and Here Maps data layers. 

2.  Fixed a screen updating problem when zooming the Design Window with a WMS layer displayed.

Version 16.2.0 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Added a feature to the anchor picker dialog box.  Previously, if you were filling a polygon with receivers, you could select existing exclusions or existing sources as an anchor point.  You can now also use existing receivers as an anchor point.  This is useful if you are laying out receivers in multiple passes to create a project with variable point densities and need to line up receiver lines/points with previously created lines.  This feature also works for source lines. 

2. Added a new source/receiver editing mode that operates on points inside a selected exclusion zone.  The primary goal was to provide an easy way to delete points inside an exclusion zone, however, there are additional modes for turning points on/off, snapping points to a grid, modifying instrument settings, and removing the template assignments of points inside an exclusion zone. 

3. The grid-based renumbering tool has been overhauled.  There is now a cartoon display that shows the orientation and numbering pattern that will result from the current parameters.  There is also a function for resorting and reordering the lines after performing the renumbering of the points.  This is useful for surveys which have been created in multiple passes (or file imports) and you need to stitch lines together.  The previous function for reordering lines is still available in the View/Reorder Lines tool.

4. There is an export tool for P1/11 files (Version 1.1).  This tools allows the editing of individual header records and the export of source/receiver position records and relational records.  Source and receiver attributes can be added to the source and receiver position records.  Blocks of header definitions can be saved and re-used. 

5. Updated the exclusion fill layout tools so that you can fill multiple exclusions with source/receiver lines and simultaneously not fill other exclusion zones.  This is useful if you are creating a project with variable point densities in different regions. 

6. In Edit Templates mode, there are now options for viewing all of the active receivers for a selected source and for viewing all of the sources that fire into a selected receiver. 

7. Added an option to the source editing toolbar for removing the marine source flag from a towed streamer source.  This works in point, line and group modes.  There can be situations where marine source points get created or imported from P1/90 files but the user actually wants to use the source locations for fixed receiver shooting instead of for towed streamer shooting.  This allows the user to “convert” the marine source points into sources that can shoot into OBS receiver geometries.

8. Elevation GeoTIFF files can be converted into Slope GeoTIFF files. 

9. Elevation GeoTIFF files can be exported as slope data in ASCII format. 

10. Added a feature to create the “line position” for sources created with dual, triple, or greater shooting configurations.  In addition to the actual source location, an alternative coordinate (named “line position”) which represents the source projected onto the sail line can also be stored.  This feature has been added to Lines/Bricks, Zig-Zag, and Marine Sail Line creation.  For some calculations, such as fold calculation, the actual source location may be desired,  For other calculations, such as line length, the line position coordinate may be more useful.  Use the Alternative Coordinates Window to swap in/out the set of coordinates you wish to use for a given program function. 

11. Marine sail polygon-type exclusions can now be used as fill boundaries for the land layout tools (lines/bricks, zig-zags, etc.)

12. Added an option to create run-in shots in the sail line generation dialog box. 

13. Added an option to the P1/90 offshore export interface for exporting source points not flagged as towed streamer source points.  This is useful if you want to export the source locations for an OBS geometry in P1/90 format.  Note–the locations of the nodes are not exported, only the source locations. 

14. Added fractal interpolation and kriging options when importing an ASCII file for generating a data raster file (GeoTIFF). 

15. Expanded KMZ output options to export the currently displayed bin attribute diagram and added many new options for parameterizing the color scale. 

16. Added an option to export the currently displayed source and receiver attributes to a KMZ file. 

17. Added an option to select multiple marine sail polylines when generating marine shot points.  Previously, the choice was to sail one line or all lines.

18. Added an option create marine sail polylines from existing source points.  One common use case is if the flip-flop parameters were used to create the source positions for an ocean bottom survey but you then later wanted to have marine sail polylines to represent the path of the vessel.  Another case is if you imported the source positions from an external file and need a way to generate the marine sail polylines.

19. New options have been add to the exclusion zone resizing tool.  There are now three options for changing the shape of the expanded polygon to have squared, mitered, or rounded edges.

20. Improved the speed of loading data into the Alternative Coordinates Windows. 

21. Improved the speed of unshooting very large surveys. 

22. Improved the layout speed when using the polygon fill option in Lines/Bricks, ZigZag, Button and Radial layout options. 

23. Fixed a drawing issue when using the option to draw connecting lines between receivers or sources. 

24. Fixed an issue creating CSV output from the Alternative Coordinates window. 

25. Fixed an issue with not being able to perform undo/redo functions after doing a resort of lines based on point numbers. 

26. Improved the speed of entering Edit Templates mode on large surveys. 

27. Fixed an issue with the line name prefix and suffix not getting updated during grid-based renumbering. 

28. Several temporary files were being inadvertently left in the data directory after closing MESA. 

29. Fixed an issue with the visibility state of individual exclusion layers getting out of sync.  

30. Fixed an intermittent crash when laying out marine sources along existing sail polylines. 

31. Fixed a crash in the marine sail lines dialog box.  If a user accessed this dialog box, closed it, and then created new marine polygons or marine sail lines, this dialog box could crash upon re-opening. 

32. Fixed a bug trying to graphically rotate exclusion zones. 

33. Fixed a problem opening MESA databases created prior to version 14.1.  These databases could crash v16.x depending on the selected map projection.  

34. Operation names in the Export to Marlin interface are now sorted alphabetically. 

35. User settings in the Export to Marlin interface are now persistent and saved with the user settings. 

36. Additional swath export options were added to the Export to Marlin interface.

37. P1/90 offshore import will import source positions from the file without or without cables defined. 

38. Fixed an issue with the attribute crossplot not displaying if receiver index or line index were being used for the x and y axes. 

39. Fixed an issue with alternative coordinates getting orphaned if a new set of marine source points was created as a replacement for existing marine source points. 

40, Fixed an issue with improper drawing of direct P and direct S raypaths in the 3D window. 

41. Fixed an issue loading TIFF files that have extra samples per pixel. 

42. Fixed a drawing issue with illumination rays leaving the model space in the 3D window.

43. Improved the speed of loading marine statistics. 

44. Improved the speed of compacting marine streamer data files when saving a project.

45. Fixed an issue with datum transformations not being stored properly.  This is one of the database changes that is not backward compatible.  After saving a project using v16.2, you should not re-open the project with earlier versions of MESA.

46. The Unit Template window can now be launched from the main toolbar in the Design Window or by right-clicking on Shooting Configurations in the Project Tree and selecting Open Unit Template Window from the popup menu.  These changes were made to make access to the tool more apparent.  The Unit Template Window can still also be accessed from the Edit menu.

47. Fixed an issue reading in the last well curve in a well set.

48. Removed an erroneous “END” card that was getting written to the last line of the XYZ export data file for model horizons.

49. MESA now exports towed streamer and hybrid towed streamer + node geometries to SimSurvey. 

50. Fixed an issue reading in Gator MFA files in which line length exceeded 4096 characters.

Version 16.1.6 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Made a fix to WMS requests to preserve all parameters, such as authentication keys. 

Version 16.1.5 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Fixed an issue with plots resetting min/max values for color scale ranges.

2. Added a skew option for rectangular shooting that facilitates “H” style shooting.

3. Fixed a bug with exporting line names from MESA to SimSurvey.

4. Fixed a bug with alternative coordinate importing when the receiver lines in the project are not ordered sequentially.

5. There are new tools for renaming source/receiver attributes and merging multiple attributes into a new attribute.

Version 16.1.4 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Fixed an issue with hardcopy printing of ShapeFiles that contain elevation data.

2. Modified line/station data that gets exported to SimSurvey.

3. Fixed an issue with the color scale defaulting improperly when exporting fold displays to KMZ.

Version 16.1.3 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Unused templates are no longer exported to Marlin or SimSurvey.

2. Fixed an issue related to Blue Marble licensing

3. Changed the SPS header card containing the datum transform to use units of arc seconds.

Version 16.1.2 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Added vessel and airgun IDs from P1/90 import to MESA marine shot points.

Version 16.1.1 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Fixed a checkbox bug in the interface for transferring a MESA geometry to SimSurvey.

2. Fixed an issue in which the flip flop layout was incorrectly culling out points that fell outside of a boundary polygon.

3. Fixed an issue with polygon fill layout methods leaving an unwanted gap in the certain lines.

4. Fixed a crash in the GeoTIFF resampling routine.

5. Fixed an issue exporting geometries to NORSAR when the project has multiple marine configurations.

6. If a MESA towed streamer geometry contains a feather angle, the geometry will be converted into a geometry with individual hydrophone positions when exported to NORSAR.

7. Fixed a performance issue decimating the vertices on a large group of sail polylines.

Version 16.1 Enhancements and Fixes

1. Added a decimated layout tool to the Lines/Bricks layout.  This new option applies a “jitter” to the line layout in which gaps are randomly inserted into the lines in the inline direction.  The gaps are constrained so that the maximum inline gap size is controlled, as well as the number of consecutive maximum size gaps.  There is also a crossline constraint so that the number of gaps in the crossline direction can be controlled.

2. A decimation function has been added to the Utilities menu.  This tool has four modes for removing sources and/or receivers from the project.  The first mode will randomly remove a percentage of points.  The second mode will randomly remove a fixed number of points from the project.  The third mode will randomly keep a fixed number of points in the project.  The fourth mode will remove every nth point along each line.

3. The randomization utility has been updated from a simple randomization in the x and/or y direction.  There are now options for randomizing source and receiver positions based on the inline/crossline bearings of a bin grid, the receiver design grid, or the source design grid.  In addition, the randomization function will optionally snap points to grid lines.  As part of this feature update, MESA is now using a higher quality randomization function than in previous releases.

4. MESA 16.1 allows access to streaming satellite imagery, topographic maps, and hillshade imagery provided by Airbus.  In order to access the imagery from Airbus, the MESA license must be on active maintenance.  If your MESA license is not currently active on maintenance, you can still access WMS data through your own link to a different server.

5. An anchor point selection tool has been added to the layout dialog boxes.  The anchor point tool allows you to fine tune the location of source and receiver lines when filling regions.  This tool will allow you select a vertex from an exclusion zone to use as a positioning anchor point or you can select an existing receiver(source) location as a positioning anchor.

6. Fixed a problem with Unicode characters in the name of the project path.

7. Fixed an issue with slow import of P190 files.

8. Fixed a display issue with the color of certain TIFF files.

9. Fixed a TIFF import issue with files downloaded from the USGS TopoView website.

10. Fixed an issue with the flip-flop source separation parameter not honoring decimal points in the Lines/Bricks Layout dialogs.

11. Fixed an issue with exporting Pattern files (.ptn) using small surveys.

12. Fixed an issue with MESA crashing when performing an undo of source attribute assignment in line and group modes. 

13. Fixed an issue in which the loaded map projection was lost if a user canceled out of opening a new project.

14. Fixed an issue with writing MESA projects to network drives. 

15. Fixed a problem with negative velocity gradients in Model Builder.

16. Fixed a display problem in the Incidence Angle Window.  Amplitudes and travel times are now properly colored according to the color scales. 

17. Fixed a problem changing the color scale when displaying the results of illumination raytracing. 

18. Fixed differences between the Expert CRP fold display and the CRP fold calculation display that resulted from significant figure differences between the bin grid origins for the two calculations. 

19. Model-based Expert attributes were previously based on the maximum horizon dip and the horizon dips in the x and y directions.  The maximum horizon dip option is still available, however the x and y dip attributes have been replaced by an apparent dip option and the user can now calculate model attributes along any bearing. 

20. Fixed an issue with stretch mutes not being properly applied to CRP attribute calculations from raytracing results.

21. Removed an unnecessary time stamp element in KMZ output that added a time slider to Google Earth displays. 

22. Fixed a crash when accessing the shooting detail for a salvo shooting configuration.

23. Fixed a drawing issue with range/bearing symbols.

24. Changed WMS image drawing to work on a background thread for better performance.

25. Fixed an issue creating exclusion zones from DXF or VYR files.

26. Fixed an issue with certain single station edit modes that could lead to crashes. 

27. Fixed an issue outputting marine sail polylines to KMZ format.

28. Added an option to the MESA export to SimSurvey that will consolidate duplicate source points into a single source location in the SimSurvey project.

29. Fixed an issue with the Marlin and SimSurvey export functions so that they work with sorted and unsorted source record numbers.

30. Fixed a bug selecting duplicate source locations when non-duplicate sources are filtered off.

31. Fixed a bug with the total traces count in the Bin Statistics window.  The count was incorrect for surveys with 4B+ traces.

32. Fixed a bug exporting template information from the Edit Template toolbar.

33. Modified the default data directory for Gator attributes to be the default data directory instead of the current working directory.

34. Screenshot settings are now getting saved to the user preferences.

35. Fixed a crash during map projection translation when receivers lines have different lengths.

36. Fixed a crash when saving projects using ED50 map projection.  This was due to datum transformations that can not be properly converted to WKT. 

37. Fixed a problem with the NORSAR geometry export not transferring feathered streamer locations. 

38. Improved the polygon fill logic for including points that fall directly on rotated boundaries.

Version 16.0 Enhancements and Fixes

1. A feature was added to create polygonal exclusion zones based on slopes derived from GeoTIFF files containing elevation data.  Users can specify a slope threshold in either degrees or percentage.  Each data point in the file is analyzed from multiple azimuths to calculate the maximum slope at that location.

2. There is a new shooting mode for adding fixed receivers to a towed streamer geometry.  If you have a marine towed streamer design and wish to have the sources also fire into either ocean bottom nodes or cables, this feature will allow you to create merged shooting templates.  You can also import P190 files with a towed streamer geometry and add nodes or bottom cables to the template.

3. Three new colorscale files were added to the installation.  These files are named cividis.csi, viridis.csi, and inferno.csi.  These colorscales were added for two reasons:  Helping users with red-green color blindness and providing an alternative to the default rainbow colorscale.  Recent research has shown that colorscales which increase linearly both in hue and brightness are easier to interpret for those with red-green color blindness.  Additionally, the same research has suggested that rainbow colorscales can lead to incorrect interpretation of data by artificially inserting hard color changes into maps.  The same linear increase in hue and brightness that helps those with color blindness can actually improve the perception of those without color blindness as well.  The new colorscales have the following color schemes:

cividis.csi – Navy blue on the low end increasing to bright yellow on the high end

viridis.csi –  Deep indigo on the low end, teal in the middle range and bright yellow on the high end

inferno.csi – Black on the low end, red-orange in the middle range and bright yellow on the high end

By default, these colorscales will be installed in C:\ProgramData\GreenMountain\colorscales.  However, if you have an existing MESA installation, you will have User Preferences set to a different colorscale directory.  The installation program overrides the User Preferences the first time MESA 16.0 is launched.  In order to use your previous colorscales, you will have to update your User Preferences to point to C:\ProgramData\GreenMountain\colorscales15 (or \colorscales14).

4. The label shooting interface has been greatly enhanced to handle more types of geometries.  Instead of an inline and a crossline roll instruction, there are now two roll instructions which are independent of line direction.  This allows users to shoot a variety of geometries in which source lines can be parallel or perpendicular to the receiver lines.  The roll preview functions have been improved and a function was added to change the location of the starting patch.

5. A tool was added for analyzing 4D attributes.  This tool allows users to compare the bin attributes from two surveys, match traces in specific offset ranges, and display a variety of standard 4D attributes (delta-source, delta-rec, delta-source+delta-rec, delta azimuth, and the inline and crossline components).  These attributes can also be analyzed in the histogram window.  In addition, the Alternative Coordinates window was upgraded to calculate inline and crossline offset differences so that 4D attributes can be analyzed from geometry differences alone instead of matching traces in the bin attributes.

6. A tool was added for creating marine detours around platforms.  This tool is on the exclusion editing toolbar and can be used to create either close pass detours or to terminate sail polylines as dead heads. 

7. An interface for exporting MESA projects to MESA’s SimSurvey time and motion analysis module was added.  This allows users to create an ocean bottom geometry in MESA and run scenarios in SimSurvey to calculate the most cost efficient and time efficient deployment scenarios.

8. An interface for exporting MESA projects to ION’s Marlin simultaneous operations management module was added.  This allows users to create a marine/OBS geometry in MESA and initialize the simultaneous operations tracking in Marlin.

9. A new type of offset histogram was added to the bin attribute offset diagrams.  Offset bars can now be colored according to azimuth from 0 to 360 degrees. 

10. Added an option for creating triple source flip-flop geometries to the line/brick layout options for sources and receivers. 

11. Added an option for creating flip-flop and triple source patterns to the circular source layout in the Unit Template Window. 

12. An xy-shift option was added to the translation/rotation utility.

13. Added a selection mode to the bin contribution tool that allows the user to select all bins which fall inside of an exclusion zone.

14. A feature was added that will normalize NORSAR hitmap attributes to use the same CMP bin grid size as used in MESA. 

15. The NORSAR interface has been enhanced.  In version 15.2, NORSAR grid-based raytracing attributes could be imported into MESA for analysis. In version 16.0, there is a new format of NORSAR attributes that can be imported–point attributes.  These attributes are imported as source and/or receiver attributes.  This type of attribute can be displayed in map views, in histograms, in attribute crossplots, and in pie charts.  These attributes can also be used in filtering operations, which makes it easy remove sources and receivers which are not contributing to the illumination of a target. 

16. Added a feature to change units from ft->m or m->ft during the rectification of GeoTIFF files.

17. Added an option to change the line thickness of polylines or polygons loaded from Shapefiles. 

18. The translation/rotation utility is now available for towed streamer marine projects.

19. There is a new export option in the Shapefile Output for writing the active bin grid to a Shapefile. 

20. The option for exporting source/receiver polylines in the Shapefile Output will now write out the source/receiver line name as the label value in the exported Shapefile. 

21. A feature was added to decimate vertices in an exclusion zone.  This can be necessary when you have created exclusion zones by importing external data or created exclusion zones by calculating slopes from elevation data and have numerous colinear or near-colinear points.  If exclusion zones are unnecessarily oversampled, it can severely affect the performance of exclusion-related functions–especially for surveys with a large number of sources/receivers. 

22. Added P10 and P90 percentile calculations to the Histogram Window.

23. Fixed a colorscale problem with bin attribute diagrams in the 3D window

24. Fixed an issue with the default screenshot directory not being set properly prior to saving a project for the first time.

25. On startup, MESA now checks for a valid, writeable GMG_DATA_DIRECTORY data folder.  If MESA doesn’t find a folder the user is now presented with an option to select a directory or quit.

26. Fixed an issue with editing and applying changes to floating point logarithmic color scales.

27. Added a file header check so that incorrectly formatted JPEG files won’t cause MESA to crash.

28. Fixed an issue with the exclusion repel function not working properly after multiple undo/redo events.

29. Improved the performance of the group move function on projects with large numbers of sources/receivers.

30. Fixed an issue in line editing mode in which points were snapping to the wrong grid line.

31. Fixed a display issue in the bin statistics report in which average fold values were getting clipped.

32. Fixed an issue with filtering on instrument types not working properly. 

33. Fixed an issue with fold calculations.  If a project had more than 2.1 billion traces and the user’s computer had more than ~60GB of RAM, fold calculations would crash or produce an empty file.

34. Fixed an issue with temporary bin and midpoint files not getting removed properly.

35. Fixed an issue with the shot point consolidation routine skipping certain source points. 

36. Improved the speed of bin grid generation for large marine surveys. 

37. Fixed an issue where filling a polygon with marine sail lines would sometime result with an occasional source line dropping the last source point on the line.

38. Added a check to the Smart Aperture tool so that the maximum incidence angle is equally divisible by the polar angle interval. 

39. Improved the performance of large copy and paste operations in the source and receiver spreadsheets.

40. Added the number of live sources to the header records of the MESA ASCII Pattern output file. 

41. Added an option to the Gator attribute import function.  Users can now use either the “Line Name” or “Preplot Name” fields in Gator attribute files to match line names in the MESA project. 

42. Fixed a problem with towed streamer geometries with streamer depths not producing rays for certain models during raytracing. 

43. Fixed an issue changing the line name in the spreadsheets if the line name started with the same digit as the point index.

44. The free WMS imagery available through Digital Globe’s Spatial on Demand 5.0 is no longer available as of Jan 1, 2019. 

45. Fixed an issue with the drawing of dynamically sized labels for Shapefiles. 

46. Fixed an issue with selecting Save As from the Project Tree behaving differently from selecting Save As from the File menu.

47. Custom WMS addresses can now be saved to the global defaults xml file and re-opened in new projects.

48.  Upgraded to Blue Marble version 7.4 map projection libraries.  Included in this upgrade is the ability to access the Blue Marble projection editing interface for creating/modifying custom map projections.

49. Fixed an issue with integer numbers being incorrectly parsed by the LAS well log import tool.

50. Fixed an issue in which the last segment of the well trajectory was not appearing in the Design Window.

51. Fixed an issue in which vertical stations were being placed at elevation intervals instead of using distance along the borehole. 

52. Fixed an intermittent crash that occurred while importing string attributes.

53. Fixed an issue with defining source instrument types.  When called from certain layout tools, the interface for defining receiver instruments was opening instead of the interface for defining source instruments. 

54. Fixed an issue importing source depth from SPS files. 

55. Fixed an issue with the SPS update function.  The “attribute to set on import” option was not properly updating string attributes. 

56. Fixed an issue reading line numbers in the Gator attribute import function.  

57. A control was added to the Gator attribute import function that hides the quality attributes from the list of available attributes. 

58. A control was added to the Gator attribute import function to specify the number of digits in the station number. 

59. If the number of marine source points is modified in a project that has previously been saved, a new prompt will appear when saving the project.  This prompt will ask if you wish to run a compaction procedure on the file that stores the marine receiver locations.  Previously, this compaction procedure was performed automatically to save disk space.  However, the procedure can take a long time so now the user is prompted whether to perform the compaction or to skip the procedure. 

60. Fixed an issue in the ASCII import window in which the window kept scrolling back to the first line of the file.  It will now stayed fixed on the defined first data line in the file.