Estimating Pixel to Metre Scale and Sea State from Remote Observations of the Ocean Surface

摘要

The pixel to metre scale of video of the ocean surface provides information about the length of objects present in the measured scene, such as ships and can be used to infer information about the state of the measured ocean surface. In this work we present two techniques for remote observations of the ocean surface, the pixel to metre scale technique and the sea state technique. We use radar measurements as a surrogate of ocean surface video with the measuring camera in a vertical position, but with the advantage of having accurate information about the underlying truth. The pixel to metre scale technique provides an estimation of the correspondence between each pixel on the video and real world distance metrics, such as metres. The sea state technique provides sea state information, such as the wind speed that caused the sea condition, the wavelength and period of the significant wave, an upper limit on the significant wave height and an estimation of the energy spectrum in the measured ocean surface. The sea state is validated with in situ buoy measurements.