Upgrades to NDSF Vehicle Camera Systems and Development of a Prototype System for Migrating and Archiving Video Data in the National Deep Submergence Facility Archives at WHOI

HR: 1330h
AN: OS32A-0232 INVITED [PDF]
TI: Upgrades to NDSF Vehicle Camera Systems and Development of a Prototype System for Migrating and Archiving Video Data in the National Deep Submergence Facility Archives at WHOI
AU: * Fornari, D
EM: dfornari@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., Woods Hole Rd., Woods Hole, MA 02543 United States
AU: Howland, J
EM: jhowland@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., Woods Hole Rd., Woods Hole, MA 02543 United States
AU: Lerner, S
EM: slerner@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., Woods Hole Rd., Woods Hole, MA 02543 United States
AU: Gegg, S
EM: sgegg@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., Woods Hole Rd., Woods Hole, MA 02543 United States
AU: Walden, B
EM: bwalden@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., Woods Hole Rd., Woods Hole, MA 02543 United States
AU: Bowen, A
EM: abowen@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., Woods Hole Rd., Woods Hole, MA 02543 United States
AU: Lamont, M
EM: mlamont@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., Woods Hole Rd., Woods Hole, MA 02543 United States
AU: Kelley, D
EM: kelley@ocean.washington.edu
AF: Univ. of Washington, School of Oceanography, Seattle, WA 98195 United States
AB: In recent years, considerable effort has been made to improve the visual recording capabilities of Alvin and ROV Jason. This has culminated in the routine use of digital cameras, both internal and external on these vehicles, which has greatly expanded the scientific recording capabilities of the NDSF. The UNOLS National Deep Submergence Facility (NDSF) archives maintained at Woods Hole Oceanograpic Institution (WHOI) are the repository for the diverse suite of photographic still images (both 35mm and recently digital), video imagery, vehicle data and navigation, and near-bottom side-looking sonar data obtained by the facility vehicles. These data comprise a unique set of information from a wide range of seafloor environments over the more than 25 years of NDSF operations in support of science. Included in the holdings are Alvin data plus data from the tethered vehicles- ROV Jason, Argo II, and the DSL-120 side scan sonar. This information conservatively represents an outlay in facilities and science costs well in excess of \$100 million. Several archive related improvement issues have become evident over the past few years. The most critical are: 1. migration and better access to the 35mm Alvin and Jason still images through digitization and proper cataloging with relevant meta-data, 2. assessing Alvin data logger data, migrating data on older media no longer in common use, and properly labeling and evaluating vehicle attitude and navigation data, 3. migrating older Alvin and Jason video data, especially data recorded on Hi-8 tape that is very susceptible to degradation on each replay, to newer digital format media such as DVD, 4. improving the capabilities of the NDSF archives to better serve the increasingly complex needs of the oceanographic community, including researchers involved in focused programs like Ridge2000 and MARGINS, where viable distributed databases in various disciplinary topics will form an important component of the data management structure. We report on an archiving effort to transfer video footage currently on Hi-8 and VHS tape to digital media (DVD). At the same time as this is being done, frame grab imagery at reasonable resolution (640x480) at 30 sec. intervals will be compiled and the images will be integrated, as much as possible with vehicle attitude/navigation data and provided to the user community in a web-browser format, such as has already been done for the recent Jason and Alvin frame grabbed imagery. The frame-grabbed images will be tagged with time, thereby permitting integration of vehicle attitude and navigation data once that is available. In order to prototype this system, we plan to utilize data from the East Pacific Rise and Juan de Fuca Ridge which are field areas selected by the community as Ridge2000 Integrated Study Sites. There are over 500 Alvin dives in both these areas and having frame-grabbed, synoptic views of the terrains covered during those dives will be invaluable for scientific and outreach use as part of Ridge2000. We plan to coordinate this activity with the Ridge2000 Data Management Office at LDEO.
DE: 3035 Midocean ridge processes
DE: 4832 Hydrothermal systems
DE: 4894 Instruments and techniques
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting