2023/04/24 by Anchen Sun, Sun, Anchen, Yang, Kaiqi
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Environmental Science · #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Electrical engineering #Graphics (cs.GR) #Image and Video Processing (eess.IV) #Multimedia (cs.MM) #Remote Sensing and LiDAR Applications #Underwater Acoustics Research #Underwater Vehicles and Communication Systems #electronic engineering #information engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2304.11783
openalex publication_date 2023/04/24 · openalex created_date 2023/04/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Rip currents pose a significant danger to those who visit beaches, as they can swiftly pull swimmers away from shore. Detecting these currents currently relies on costly equipment and is challenging to implement on a larger scale. The advent of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and camera technology, however, has made monitoring near-shore regions more accessible and scalable. This paper proposes a new framework for detecting rip currents using video-based methods that leverage optical flow estimation, offshore direction calculation, earth camera projection with almost local-isometric embedding on the sphere, and temporal data fusion techniques. Through the analysis of videos from multiple beaches, including Palm Beach, Haulover, Ocean Reef Park, and South Beach, as well as YouTube footage, we demonstrate the efficacy of our approach, which aligns with human experts' annotations.