Remote Measurement Technology for Sail Shape Determination

记录和分析帆船性能的一项基本技术是相机。这一点在高性能帆船运动中尤为重要。这可以是视频或数码相机，使水手、帆的形状、帆的设置、船与环境的相互作用能够被记录、分析和讨论。简单的视频图像捕获和航行后分析可以帮助教练员和水手了解复杂的交互作用，如果评估特定的动作，可以在一瞬间或一段时间内进行。除了对航行视频进行一般目视观察的好处外，还有可能使用视频和数码相机对拍摄到的事件进行科学评估；这一领域的研究尚未得到充分开发。近几年来，成像技术有了重大发展，计算机能力也有所提高。高分辨率数码相机和数码摄像机现在可以以更低的成本获得。理想情况下，要求是：为训练运动员测量风帆形状和相关的水上性能的方法，以及监测设备性能的方法。这是一个极其复杂和困难的科学和工程问题。创建一种承担这项任务的方法可行吗？这种高水平的科学性能分析在过去是不可用的，它被提议作为实现进行可行性研究的理想要求的第一步，将IESSG中可用的最先进的成像技术和处理技术应用于这一新的应用领域。过去对小艇进行的研究很少，主要是在较大的游艇上进行。特别新奇的是从紧随其后的支持船上拍摄图像的概念。克服可能极差的相机配置几何结构、大景深，以及在“软”的、可能是透明的或单色表面上实现测量的科学问题是具有挑战性的，导致潜在的新解决方案。陆基激光扫描是一项非常新的技术，将用于测量静态风帆的形状，由于其测量整个风帆和尺寸的速度较慢，只有在陆地上和静止风帆的情况下才是可行的，但这种新的应用可能被证明是有用的，用于风帆质量控制。方法和遥测技术的测试可以在静态陆基测试现场进行。预期在海洋和业务环境中应用研究结果的研究将成为后续研究项目的重点。

A fundamental technology for recording and analysing the performance of sailing dinghies is the camera. This is particularly important in high performance sailing. This may be a video or a digital camera to enable sailor, sail shape, sail setting, boat and environmental interaction to be recorded, analysed and discussed. Simple video image capture and post sailing analysis can help the coach and sailor understand the complex interaction at an instant in time or over a period of time if assessing a particular manoeuvre. In addition to the benefits of general visual observation of a sailing video there is the potential to use video and digital cameras to scientifically assess the event captured; research in this area has not been fully exploited.There have been significant developments in imaging technologies over the recent few years as well as increases in computer power. High-resolution digital cameras and digital video camcorders are now available at decreasing costs. Ideally, the requirement is: a method for measuring sail shape and related boat performance on the water for, training athletes and for monitoring equipment performance. This is an extremely complex and difficult science and engineering problem to solve. Is it feasible to create a methodology to undertake this task? This high level of scientific analysis of performance has not been available in the past.It is proposed as a first step towards fulfilling the ideal requirement to undertake a feasibility study taking the state of the art imaging technology and processing available in the IESSG and applying it to this novel application area. There has been little research in the past undertaken with dinghies, it has mainly been undertaken on larger yachts. Of particular novelty is the concept of taking images from a following support vessel. Scientific problems of overcoming potentially extremely poor camera configuration geometry, large depths of field, and achieving measurements on 'soft', possibly transparent or monochrome surfaces, are challenging, leading to potentially novel solutions. Ground based laser scanning is a very new technology and will be used to measure the static sail shape, due to its slow speed of measurement of the whole sail and it's size, it is only viable on land and with a static sail but this novel application may prove to be useful for sail quality control. The testing of methodologies and remote measurement technology can be undertaken in a static land based test site. It is expected that the research into applying the findings in a marine and operational environment will be the focus for a follow-on research project.