1. John H. Porter and David E. Smith
Dept. of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia
Live from the Field: Managing Live-Image Databases at the Virginia Coast Reserve

2. Roadmap Why images? Forms of image visualization and analysis
The VCR/LTER system
Database systems used to manage images
Note: this is a small $50-100K ADP
ADP= Acronym Deficient Project

3. Supporting Research and Education
Why Images?

4. “A picture is worth 1,000 words”
Broadwater Virginia, Sept

5. Unobtrusive observation
Cameras from Shawn Padgett at the Center for Conservation Biology, William & Mary

6. Extreme conditions
Broadwater Virginia Sept. 18, during Hurricane Isabel

7. Manipulation of time scales
“Watching Grass Grow”

10. Forms of Image Display Still images Mosaics Low-Speed Animation
Discrete events or systems
Mosaics
Extensive areas, small (but visible) objects
Low-Speed Animation
Change detection
High-Speed Animation (video)
Recognizing patterns in long time series
Processed
Automated or assisted change detection

12. Still images

13. Mosaics

14. Low-Speed Animation

15. Processed
Image differencing and thresholding can help identify locations of cryptic fiddler crabs

16. High Speed Animation

17. Virginia Coast Reserve LTER System
Two major camera installations on Hog Island
Peregrine Falcon camera operated by Center for Conservation Biology (but we manage data harvest)
= Pan-Tilt - cameras

18. Wi-Fi and 900 MHz radios provide a minimum of 3 Mbs over a total distance of up to 40 km

19. Frequency of “Live” Data/ Bandwidth Required
Camera Locations
Cameras
# Images per Harvest
Frequency of “Live” Data/ Bandwidth Required
Frequency of Archival Collections
Archived Dates
Number of Images Archived
Broadwater Tower – Landscape
1 PTZ 20
5 seconds /
3 KB/sec
Hourly
April present
593,157
Machipongo Station – Landscape and CrabCams
1 PTZ,
1-3 fixed
6-8
10 seconds
/6 KB/sec
April present
88,339
Machipongo Station
Landscape/Birds
Scan of PTZ camera
132
N/A
Bi-Hourly
July 2006-present
558,134
Chimney-Pole Marsh – Heronry
1 fixed 1
5 Hz /
1 MB/sec
Variable (change detection)
July 2003-August 2003
10,329
Cobb Island -FalconCam
1 PTZ, 3 fixed
2-4
2-10 seconds /
12 KB/sec
10-minutes to Hourly
May present
70,819 (stored but not archived)
Other FalconCams
3 PTZ, 9 fixed
1-4
5-10 seconds /
36 KB/sec
Not archived

20. Management of Images Harvest Short-term Storage
Via shell script using command-line web browser
Short-term Storage
In local file system
PERL programs prepare animation views

21. Management of Images Addition to MySQL Database
PERL script indexes each image into the database based on location, time and image size
Images themselves are stored in file system hierarchy (Camera, Location, Year, Month)
Rationale: images themselves are not queriable in the database, so why increase the size of database backups by including lots of binary data.

22. Image Query Web forms allow selection of image sets based on
Location
Time
Frequency
Database search and image retrieval is implemented using a PERL script.
This is needed because user-supplied times are imprecise, so multiple candidate images need to be queried, and the best candidate selected for retrieval.

23. Conclusions Imagery provides unique perspectives on ecological systems
A variety of image visualization tools are needed to exploit those images
An underlying database can effectively provide needed images to the visualization tools

24. Challenges
Additional image processing tools are needed to allow automated data extraction from the images
Existing query and analysis tools in the system are designed to aid a human being, not operate independently

25. Useful URLs http://ecocam.evsc.virginia.edu
Main webcam educational page
Look under wwwcams
Information on wireless networks, components etc.

26. Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants DEB and DEB and by a grant from the Virginia Environmental Endowment. The Virginia Coast Reserve of the Nature Conservancy provided access to study sites. Thomas Williams, David Hughes and Shawn Padgett provided aid in establishing the wireless network and in the installation of web cameras.