[Coral-List] drone used to photograph reefs

[Douglas Fenner]

So fantastic whiz-bang technology!  Great!!  We'd all like to be able to
finally see what the reef looks like, each bump, hole, and coral colony, on
our computer screens in the office or lab.  Never mind that it is only a
tiny patch of the world's reefs.  Article didn't say how much 6 mo of
supercomputer time to crunch the data will cost.  Surely vastly more than
the $90,000 for the camera and $15,000 for the drone.  How practical will
that be for mapping the world's reefs?  What major coral reef problem will
be solved by this?  Will it solve some major mystery about reefs?  Will it
save any reefs or corals?  I didn't see an answer to that in the article.
A person was quoted in this article as saying it is faster than having
someone go underwater and take a lot of pictures and stitch them together.
But clearly not faster if you include computer time.  Instead of 6 mo of
supercomputer, you can do the computer processing on your own computer in a
few hours with software that is dirt cheap compared to a supercomputer for
6 mo.  For the price of supercomputer for 6 mo, you could provide funding
for reef management for a whole country for a year or more, I would guess.
Or voluntary birth control for a whole small country for a year or so (I'm
totally with you on that, Alina!).
    I'm playing "devil's advocate" here.
     Cheers,  Doug


On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 7:04 AM Nicole Crane <nicrane at cabrillo.edu> wrote:

> Just saw a presentation on this while in Guam. Super!
> Nicole
>
> On Fri, Jun 28, 2019 at 10:25 AM Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
>> Drone takes to the skies to image offshore reefs
>>
>>
>> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01988-9?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20190627&utm_source=nature_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190627&sap-outbound-id=F6879643729B698E3E09146A03F27DA843F58E1B&mkt-key=005056B0331B1ED782EEA4D8C7ECAFA3
>>
>>
>> open access
>>
>> (Note the cost and that it may take 6 mo of supercomputer time to analyze
>> the data from 5 sq m.  Also doesn't say how deep it can image or how image
>> degrades with depth.)
>>
>> Cheers,  Doug
>> --
>> Douglas Fenner
>> Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
>> NOAA Fisheries Service
>> Pacific Islands Regional Office
>> Honolulu
>> and:
>> Consultant
>> PO Box 7390
>> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
>>
>> A call to climate action  (Science editorial)
>>
>> https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2019-05-30&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2840296
>>
>> New book "The Uninhabitable Earth"  First sentence: "It is much, much
>> worse
>> than you think."
>> Read first (short) chapter open access:
>>
>> https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/read-a-chapter-from-the-uninhabitable-earth-a-dire-warning-on-climate-change
>>
>> Want a Green New Deal?  Here's a better one.
>>
>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-a-green-new-deal-heres-a-better-one/2019/02/24/2d7e491c-36d2-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.a3fc8337cbf8
>> _______________________________________________
>> Coral-List mailing list
>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>>
> --
> Nicole L. Crane
> Faculty, Cabrillo College
> Natural and Applied Sciences
> www.cabrillo.edu/~ncrane
>
> Senior Conservation Scientist, Project co-lead
> One People One Reef
> onepeopleonereef.ucsc.edu
>
>
>
>

-- 
Douglas Fenner
Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

A call to climate action  (Science editorial)
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2019-05-30&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2840296

New book "The Uninhabitable Earth"  First sentence: "It is much, much worse
than you think."
Read first (short) chapter open access:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/read-a-chapter-from-the-uninhabitable-earth-a-dire-warning-on-climate-change

Want a Green New Deal?  Here's a better one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-a-green-new-deal-heres-a-better-one/2019/02/24/2d7e491c-36d2-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.a3fc8337cbf8