The 'Digital Grain Size' Web and Mobile-Computing Application
This project team developed a Web-hosted application (that can also be used on mobile platforms) for automatic analysis of images of sediment for grain-size distribution, using the “Digital Grain Size” (DGS) algorithm of Buscombe (2013) (“DGS-Online,” 2015). This is a free, browser-based application for accurately estimating the grain-size distribution of sediment in digital images without any manual intervention or even calibration. It uses the statistical algorithm of Buscombe (2013) that estimates particle size directly from the spatial distribution of light intensity within the image. The application is designed to batch-process tens to thousands of images, utilizing cloud computing storage and processing technologies. Typical processing times are 1–60 seconds per image, depending on the size of file and the user inputs.
At the Web site, the user can (1) login to their personal dashboard using a Google account (gmail address); (2) create a “job” which involves uploading sediment imagery and assign “tags” and processing options to each image separately, to groups of images, or to all images at once; (3) launch a Web application to upload and process imagery on a cloud server; (4) and download grain-size distributions and other statistics in three formats (csv, xml, and json); and (5) create graphs of their results. The user will be able to store their imagery on the server for reprocessing images and redownloading data. The user can create as many separate jobs as they wish, privately and securely on their own personal dashboard, from which they can share results through their browser, securely, with whomever they wish.
- Source: USGS Sciencebase (id: 552449f3e4b027f0aee3d3df)
This project team developed a Web-hosted application (that can also be used on mobile platforms) for automatic analysis of images of sediment for grain-size distribution, using the “Digital Grain Size” (DGS) algorithm of Buscombe (2013) (“DGS-Online,” 2015). This is a free, browser-based application for accurately estimating the grain-size distribution of sediment in digital images without any manual intervention or even calibration. It uses the statistical algorithm of Buscombe (2013) that estimates particle size directly from the spatial distribution of light intensity within the image. The application is designed to batch-process tens to thousands of images, utilizing cloud computing storage and processing technologies. Typical processing times are 1–60 seconds per image, depending on the size of file and the user inputs.
At the Web site, the user can (1) login to their personal dashboard using a Google account (gmail address); (2) create a “job” which involves uploading sediment imagery and assign “tags” and processing options to each image separately, to groups of images, or to all images at once; (3) launch a Web application to upload and process imagery on a cloud server; (4) and download grain-size distributions and other statistics in three formats (csv, xml, and json); and (5) create graphs of their results. The user will be able to store their imagery on the server for reprocessing images and redownloading data. The user can create as many separate jobs as they wish, privately and securely on their own personal dashboard, from which they can share results through their browser, securely, with whomever they wish.
- Source: USGS Sciencebase (id: 552449f3e4b027f0aee3d3df)