On determination of height of cloud base using ground-based stereophotography
A.I. Chulichkov1,2, M.S. Andreev1,2, G.S. Golitsyn2, N.F. Elansky2, A.P. Medvedev2, O.V. Postylyakov2
1Lomonosov Moscow State University, 1, Leninskie gory, Moscow 119991, Russia
2A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics Russian Academy of Sciences, Pyzhevsky per., 3, 119017, Moscow, Russia
Keywords: облачность, нижняя граница облачности, измерение характеристик облачности, дистанционное зондирование, стереосъемка, сlouds, cloud base, measuring the characteristics of the cloud, remote sensing, stereoscopic
Abstract
The paper proposes and investigates the method of measuring the height of the cloud base using the stereo pair of images taken using two digital cameras. The method of determination of camera orientation parameters required to solve the problem uses images of the night star sky. To calculate the distance to the cloud, the image shift of a fragment of the cloud as a whole is used. The selection of the fragment in the photos is performed using methods of morphological image analysis. When the stereo base is 60 m and taking pictures with a resolution of 1200 pixels in the field of view of 60 the error does not exceed 10% at the height of the cloud base less than 4 km. Optimization of the parameters of photography, including the increase of the stereo base, can significantly improve the accuracy of the estimation the height of the cloud base. Examples of estimation of the height of cloud base on the layout of the experimental setup are compared with the measurements of the laser range finder.
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