Two cameras are deployed on the C-130 for the ICE-L project. Each records an image at 1 or two frames per second. The preliminary movies from these cameras are made with reduced resolution and play at 15 frames second so the playback is 7.5 - 15 times faster than real time. Each image is stamped with the date and time in the form YYMMDD-HHMMSS.



The forward camera has a field of view (FOV) of 67 degrees horizontal by 53 degrees vertical. The camera pixels are rectangular with an aspect ratio of 1.1 so when played back on a computer (whose pixels are sqaure) there will be

some 'squashing' of the image.



The FOV of the downward camera is about 62 degrees horizontally and 48 degrees vertically with some barrel distortion. The pixels are square so they match computer displays.

For the preliminary MPEG-4 movies each image was processed with the linux ImageMagick toolkit. The image was first cropped to 512x384 pixels.  Sharpening was then performed [SHARPEN(0.0x1.0)]. Where both forward- and downward-looking camera images are available, the images were combined into a single frame. Each image was then annotated in the lower right with the time the image was recorded and data values at the image time for a set of data paramters chosen by RAF. These 1-second annotated images were compiled into a video stream running at 15

frames/s, 1000 k bps data rate. The movies can be played by Quicktime 6.5 or later (Mac and Windows), xine (linux), or RealPlayer 10.5 and later (Windows OK, Mac not tried).

S. Beaton

J. Aquino

NCAR/RAF

2007-11-06

Flight comments:

TF01: The side camera time is about 3.5 minutes fast. This was fixed for

subsequent flights. Forward camera time should be accurate.



TF02: No forward camera.

TF03

: No forward camera.

RF01

: slightly late start of downward camera

RF02

: No forward camera

RF06

: Fwd camera quit mid-flight. No forward images after 17:33:30.

RF08

: No forward camera.

RF12

: Fwd camera started late at 16:26:30

TF04: The original fwd camera images are missing, but the movie exists.