APPARATUS FOR MONITORING GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES CHANGE OF INTERTIDAL ZONE USING IMAGE PICTURED BY CAMERA AND THE METHOD THEREOF

摘要

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method to monitor change in geographical feature of an intertidal zone using a digital camera without image capturing using an aircraft or a satellite. The apparatus to monitor a change in geographical feature of an intertidal zone includes: an average image creating unit creating an average image of the seaside images captured for a predetermined time using a plurality of cameras; a color profile analyzing unit extracting a feature value for each pixel from the average image created by the average image creating unit; a coastline extracting unit calculating an average moving of the feature value for each pixel extracted from the color profile analyzing unit, calculating a difference between an average moving value and pixel feature value, classifying pixels having values not smaller than a threshold value, and extracting a coastline by selecting as a coastline pixel a first pixel from among the classified pixels having not smaller than or not greater than an overall average value; and a coastline contour creating unit calculating a plurality of coastline contours by applying a tide level value of a corresponding capturing time to a plurality of coastlines extracted at a predetermined time interval for a time between a flood and ebb tides at each time period including the flood and ebb tides with respect to an identical intertidal zone and calculating an altitude. Accordingly, monitoring a geographical feature change for an intertidal zone can easily be performed at low costs, and accuracy and reliability can significantly be improved.