Day 16

Data Day!! We started the morning out having a discussion with the professors about what our individual research question would be. We went around the room sharing our research interests and discussing the details regarding our research questions. My interest from the beginning was in regards to the fresh water seeps. The Ka’a’awa Valley gets a lot of rainfall, but there is only a small stream flowing through the middle and that stream dries up before it reaches the ocean, begging the question of where is the water going? The theory is that the water is seeping into the ground through the porous volcanic material and then seeping out of the ocean floor near the beach. These fresh water seeps can cause problems for the coral and people generally want to know where they are. So, my thought was to use the thermal IR camera on a quad or hexicopter to image the shoreline looking for temperature differences since the fresh water should be a different temperature from the salt water. However, about 5 other people had a similar idea, mostly because I think people just want an opportunity to get in the water. So, I’ve decided to pursue my other interest, which is to use one of the different copters to image the valley walls and try to map them and produce a 3D model of them. This is challenging because we don’t have really good methods for doing it yet, like we do for the ground. So, that should be an interesting challenge. So, after the research question portion of our discussion, we decided to stay home today and use the day to get our data organized, YAY!! I love that. So, far, Scott and I have been pretty much in charge of the data organization from the UAV flights. But we need more organization! So, we discussed different ways of achieving that and I left the meeting with a task list:

• Image collection procedures
• Personal file management
• NAS, access point
• Data crow, Picasa

We had to write up a procedure for people to follow on how to collect UAV imagery, so Scott and I aren’t always doing it. Then I had to explore different ways of handling personal data so that everyone can access each other’s stuff, then I had to spec out a cheap NAS and an access point since we decided those would be nice things to get for the barn. Then I had to evaluate Datacrow and Picasa and pick one for our image management. I found out later that I had a few more tasks, like geotagging the rest of our images and setting a shared folder on one of our laptops. Anyway, I just got done with my research question document and now I’m done blogging and ready for bed.