Remote Measurement Technology for Sail Shape Determination

记录和分析帆船性能的一项基本技术是摄像机。这在高性能帆船运动中尤为重要。这可能是一个视频或数码相机，可以记录、分析和讨论水手、帆形、帆设置、船只和环境的相互作用。简单的视频图像捕获和航行后分析可以帮助教练和水手了解在一个时刻或一段时间内的复杂互动，如果评估一个特定的操纵。除了对航行视频进行一般视觉观察的好处之外，还可以使用视频和数码相机对捕获的事件进行科学评估;这方面的研究尚未得到充分利用。近几年来，成像技术取得了重大发展，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不断降低的成本获得。理想情况下，要求是：一种用于测量风帆形状和相关的水上船只性能的方法，用于训练运动员和用于监测设备性能。这是一个极其复杂和难以解决的科学和工程问题。创建一种方法来承担这项任务是否可行？这种高水平的性能科学分析在过去是不可能的。作为实现理想要求的第一步，建议进行可行性研究，采用IESSG中现有的最先进的成像技术和处理，并将其应用于这一新的应用领域。过去很少有研究用小艇进行，主要是在较大的游艇上进行。特别新奇的是从跟随的支持船拍摄图像的概念。克服潜在的极差的相机配置几何形状，大景深，并实现对“软”，可能是透明或单色表面的测量的科学问题是具有挑战性的，导致潜在的新颖的解决方案。地面激光扫描是一项非常新的技术，将用于测量静态帆形，由于其整个帆的测量速度慢，它的大小，它是唯一可行的土地和静态帆，但这种新的应用可能被证明是有用的帆质量控制。可以在一个静态的陆基试验场进行方法和遥测技术的测试。预计将研究结果应用于海洋和作业环境的研究将是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.