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Sunset State Beach Video Camera 1 dark image

Detailed Description

Two video cameras overlook the coast at Sunset State Beach in Watsonville, California. Camera 1 looks northwest while Camera 2 looks north. Every half hour during daylight hours, the cameras collect snapshots and video for 10 minutes. The various imagery collected:

  • Snapshot: first frame of the video, just like a standard photo
  • Timex (time-exposure): time-averaged image of all frames over 10 minutes smooths away surface waves and helps determine the location of persistent wave-breaking (indicative of shallow sandbars)
  • Variance Image: standard deviation of pixel intensity throughout the video frames, useful for determining how much variation or movement is occurring at a given location
  • Bright Image: brightest pixel values at each location throughout the video, useful to identify the position of maximum wave run-up on the beach, position of all breaking waves, and sea-state
  • Dark Image: darkest pixel values at each location throughout the video, useful for tracking sediment plumes, tracking floating debris, and filtering out breaking waves

Sources/Usage

Public Domain.

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