Methods Of Measurement The Three-Dimensional Wind Waves Spectra, Based On The Processing Of Video Images Of The Sea Surface

Optical instruments for measuring surface-wave characteristics provide a better spatial and temporal resolution than other methods, but they face difficulties while converting the results of indirect measurements into absolute levels of the waves. We have solved this problem to some extent. In this paper, we propose an optical method for measuring the 3D power spectral density of the surface waves and spatio-temporal samples of the wave profiles. The method involves, first, synchronous recording of the brightness field over a patch of a rough surface and measurement of surface oscillations at one or more points and, second, filtering of the spatial image spectrum. Filter parameters are chosen to maximize the correlation of the surface oscillations recovered and measured at one or two points. In addition to the measurement procedure, the paper provides experimental results of measuring multidimensional spectra of roughness, which generally agree with theoretical expectations and the results of other authors. Index terms – directional spectrum, geophysical signal processing, image processing, optical measurement of surface roughness, video processing, wave number spectrum, wind-generated waves.