OpenVDM is a ship-wide data management platform for research vessels.

OpenVDM is a ship-wide data management platform developed by the OceanDataTools project to support scientific research vessels and remotely operated vehicles.

It automates the collection, organisation, and distribution of data from multiple instrument and data-acquisition systems into a unified, consistently structured cruise data package. Once a cruise is complete the package can be transferred to a shoreside archive, submitted to a national data repository, or made available to the science party with minimal manual effort.

Key Capabilities

  • Automated, scheduled data ingestion from instruments over local networks using rsync, SMB, SSH, and rclone
  • Web-based administration and real-time operational dashboard
  • Plugin architecture for custom per-file parsing and visualisation
  • Cruise and lowering lifecycle management with finalization and archival workflows
  • Continuous ship-to-shore synchronisation over satellite links
  • MD5 checksum tracking for data integrity verification

License

OpenVDM is released under the MIT License.

Contributing

Bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests are welcome on GitHub.

Contact

For questions or support contact info@oceandatatools.org.