Observation system for Puerto Rico coastal wave analysis

The National Weather Service in San Juan receives wave model output for the Puerto Rican regional coastal waters generated by WaveWatch III model of National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). These predictions are often unreliable mainly due to the fact that in-situ observations are not available for the coastal regions of Puerto Rico. These observations are required for calibration and validation of the wave model predictions.; This thesis proposes the use of video cameras to collect images of the nearshore zone of the ocean and the development of an algorithm for processing that video data. The algorithm is based on Fast Fourier Transformation, which allows definition of periodic properties of the objects with different gray-scale intensity levels. The output produced by the algorithm includes estimates of wave parameters, such as period and direction in real-world physical units.