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  • James et al Pointcatcher preprint with figs

    Accepted author manuscript, 2.33 MB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

  • S0022143016000277a

    Rights statement: © The Author(s) 2016. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

    Final published version, 941 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Pointcatcher software: analysis of glacial time-lapse photography and integration with multi-temporal digital elevation models

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>02/2016
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of Glaciology
Issue number231
Volume62
Number of pages11
Pages (from-to)159-169
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Terrestrial time-lapse photography offers insight into glacial processes through high spatial and temporal resolution imagery. However, oblique camera views complicate measurement in geographic coordinates, and lead to reliance on specific imaging geometries or simplifying assumptions for calculating parameters such as ice velocity. We develop a novel approach that integrates time-lapse imagery with multi-temporal digital elevation models to derive full 3D coordinates for natural features tracked throughout a monoscopic image sequence. This enables daily independent measurement of horizontal (ice flow) and vertical (ice melt) velocities. By combining two terrestrial laser scanner surveys with a 73-day sequence from Sólheimajökull, Iceland, variations in horizontal ice velocity of ~10% were identified over timescales of ~25 days. An overall surface elevation decrease of ~3.0 m showed rate changes asynchronous with the horizontal velocity variations, demonstrating a temporal disconnect between the processes of ice surface lowering and mechanisms of glacier movement. Our software, ‘Pointcatcher’, is freely available for user-friendly interactive processing of general time-lapse sequences and includes Monte Carlo error analysis and uncertainty projection onto DEM surfaces. It is particularly suited for analysis of challenging oblique glacial imagery, and we discuss good features to track, both for correction of camera motion and for deriving ice velocities.

Bibliographic note

© The Author(s) 2016. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.