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over
20 gigabytes of imagery
The
3 shots above show dark water flowing out of the
intercoastal area through the inlet. The exceptionally
dark color is due
partly
to runoff from all the rain, and partly due to
the naturally dark colored water from the Everglades.
please
feel free to submit your own 'best of' images
and we'll add them to this page...send them to
EVS
Web
Page Statistics
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Note that 'Total Visitors' includes multiple visits
by the same person
Feb
4, 2004: New weather data software was installed
that gives much more complete weather data and
statistics. Updates now occur every 5 minutes.
Weather trends and forecasts are also provided,
along with past highs and lows.
Oct 6 2003: A new camera and pan/tilt unit
has been installed and the results are excellent.
The 5 mega-pixel Olympus C-5050 digital camera
takes some of the highest resolution shots on
the internet. A polarizer has been attached
to the lens, and the saturation levels have been
increased to provide beautiful images that show
almost glare free colors, allowing one to see
the near shore turbidity and the colored (typically
brownish) waters that comes out from the inter-coastal
areas. The camera has been mounted on its side,
that is, rotated 90 degrees from the normal position,
so the images are taller than they are wide.
This picture
shows the inside of the camera housing.
Next to the digital camera is the Sony block video
camera. It has excelent low light capabilities
and an 18x optical zoom.
Aug 21 2003: A new system has been installed
to replace the one damaged by the tornado on Aug
10. This new system has both a digital camera
for beautiful hi resolution shots (an Olympus
C-700 with polarizer) and a Sony Block Video camera
that features low light and extended zoom capabilities.
The digital camera is programmed to take hourly
shots during the day of both zoomed and wide angle
views, stitch them together into one high resolution
image, and upload them with a thumbnail to the
Internet. The video camera takes more
frequent images of both a wide view and a zoomed
view on Jupiter Inlet. For more information
about this system, please visit Erdman
Video Systems.
July 30 2003: Up until July 2003, the camera
system watching Jupiter Inlet had been using a
digital camera (Kodak DC4800),
and was taking images about every 30 minutes.
The quality of the images was excellent thanks
to the 3 megapixel sensor of the
digital camera. The weakness of the system
is that the digital camera has a limit life time
in terms of the number of pictures it
can take (this is due to the mechanical shutter,
something video cameras do not have). We thus
limited the system to updates
every 30 minutes in order to extend the camera
life time to about 2 years. The original
camera failed in June 2003. At the time
we were discussing fixing the camera, the people
at Jupiter Inlet District (who pay for the camera
and its maintenance) decided
to upgrade to a video camera and DSL in order
to get better zoom capabilities, much more frequent
updates to the web pages
and the possibility of 'taking control' of the
camera during emergency and security monitoring
situations. A high quality Sony
video camera has been installed, and it is capable
of taking an unlimited number of shots, the practical
limit being the archiving
and uploading of the images. The Sony camera
also features an 18x optical zoom (compared to
3x for the Kodak camera)
and low light capabilities. Although the quality
is good compared to many video cameras, compared
to the digital camera, it is
not nearly as good.
The benefits of the new video based system is
much faster updates to the Jupiter Inlet Web Page,
and better zoom on the jetty
where conditions can get hazardous. We currently
update the zoomed in Inlet shots every 3-6 minutes
from 6:30 am to 8:00
pm, and the wide panoramic view is updated every
10-15 minutes. The past few days of images
are kept online in the form
of a slide show so one can view all the recent
shots taken.
Unfortunately, there were some conflicts with
the digital camera, and we have temporarily stopped
taking and uploading the
digital images. We are actively sorting
out these new conflicts and plan on bringing back
the digital camera in the next few
months. When this happens, we will have
to decide how often to take the digital shots,
and how often to take the video shots.
The digital shots take a few minutes each to process
and upload to the internet. If we were to
take digital shots every 30
minutes of the panoramic view, this would cut
down on the number of video shots we can take
by about 20%. If we did the
digital shots every 2-3 hours, the number of 'missed'
video shots would be a lot less. If you
have opinions about how often the
video shots should be refreshed, please send us
an email. The camera system is a service
for the northern Palm Beach County
area so we will listen to your needs, requests,
and comments.
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