Processing stationary acoustic data in SonoBat 30
See below for detailed guidance on attributing metadata to recordings, scrubbing noise files, assigning automated species IDs to recordings, and exporting metadata in the NABat bulk upload template.
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Processing stationary acoustic data in SonoBat 30
Only the SonoBat 30 build [20250128] and newer have integrated the updated (Fall 2024) NABat stationary acoustic metadata fields.
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Visit SonoBat 30 updates page at https://sonobat.com/updates/ for information on the most current program build and classifier series, including instructions for updating a currently installed SonoBat 30 installation. If a build ID is not reflected in template, please contact a member of the Technical Outreach Team for assistance.
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Attribute Files:​
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1. Open the SonoBat Data Wizard and select NABat Attributer from the drop-down menu in the top left of the window. Click the folder icon in the top right of the window and navigate to the folder containing the .wav files you intend to attribute (this should be a folder for a single deployment). Next, determine if you would like to Copy and Attribute to Output Folder or Rename and Attribute in place using the dropdown option. Specify an output directory in the Output Folder section where attributed files will be saved. The right panel of the application displays the GUANO metadata present in your selected acoustic files. This will be updated as NABat metadata fields are assigned in the Data Wizard.
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2. Click the NABat Metadata button and enter metadata in the popup window that appears.
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3. Once you have added all required NABat metadata (and any other metadata you collected), click the Attribute Files button in the bottom center of the window. You will need to complete this process once for each unique detector deployment.​​​
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Scrub Noise Files:​
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1. Click the folder icon in the top right corner of the Data Wizard window and navigate to the folder containing your .wav files.
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2. Click the drop-down menu in the top left and select Batch File Scrubber.
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3. Select Thorough: more carefully scans.
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4. Select medium from the filter options and ensure the appropriate frequency filter is selected.
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5. Click Scrub in the bottom left of the window.
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6. NABat requests that users provide metadata for scrubbed NOISE files. However, SonoBat automatically ignores any folder labeled Noise Files, Deleted Files, or Scrubbed Files. To ensure scrubbed files load in the SonoVet table, rename folders containing scrubbed files as NOTBAT before loading folders into SonoVet.
Assign Species IDs:​​​
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1. Open SonoBat 30 western [or eastern] North America and click the SonoBatch button in the lower left corner.
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2. Click the folder icon in the top center of the window and navigate to the folder containing the files you intend to process.
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3. Select the classifier most appropriate for your location using the drop-down menus on the left side of the window.
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4. Ensure Append species codes to filenames? is NOT selected.​
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5. Select autofilter in areas without low-frequency bat species and auto-low in areas with low-frequency bats present.
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6. Set acceptable call quality to 0.80.
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7. Set sqnc decision threshold to 0.90.
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8. Set max number of calls to consider to 16.
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9. Click Process in the bottom center of the window.
Export Metadata into the NABat Bulk Upload Template:
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The following steps can be used to export metadata from all processed deployments simultaneously, resulting in a single CSV with metadata from numerous sites. Simply select the parent folder that contains all of your processed deployments and follow the steps outlined below. The presence of non .wav files in the folder will not interfere with this process. SonoBat will ignore non .wav files.​
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1. Open SonoBat 30 western [or eastern] North America and click the SonoVet button in the lower left corner.
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2. Click the Settings tab on the top menu bar. Click the dropdown menu for the vetting table layout setting and select the NABat summary preview option to load the NABat metadata form.
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​3. Click the Vetting Table tab from the top menu bar. Ensure all required fields have values and that all fields for which you have entered data are filled.​
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4. If everything is correct, click the Export tab from the top menu bar. Select a destination folder to save the metadata file and select Output null as an empty cell from the dropdown menu in the bottom center of the window. Click the Use current layout dropdown and select the NABat summary option. Provide a unique name for your metadata CSV.
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5. Click Save to File.
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6. Open the new metadata CSV, and enter the value for the metadata field, Name of Species List for Auto Id. If applicable, also include the value for the metadata field, Name of Species List for Manual Id. Click File, Save.
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7. Your metadata is now ready for upload to the NABat Partner Portal.