'House Hunters Walrus': Novel Camera System to Map Arctic Sea Ice Surface Topography

Dec. 14, 2012 — Walrus use sea ice as a reproductive, migration and resting habitat. However, as sea ice melts and recedes, this marine mammal increasingly is threatened.

A University of Delaware research team, led by Chandra Kambhamettu, professor of computer and information sciences, has developed a novel camera system to map the surface topography of Arctic sea ice. The effort is part of a collaborative National Science Foundation project involving scientists at UD, the University of Virginia and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to assess walrus habitat.

Scott Sorensen, a doctoral student at UD, returned from a two-month expedition aboard the German research vessel Polarstern in October. He installed three cameras aboard Polarstern to continuously capture images of the sea ice during the expedition. He and fellow doctoral student Rohith Kumar designed the camera system in UD's Video/Imaging Modeling and Synthesis Laboratory (VIMS). The team is now using the raw data to reconstruct polar ice floes in 3-D.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121214124003.htm