Introduction

The biggest limitation to the prediction of nearshore waves dynamics and circulation is typically a lack of recent, accurate bathymetry data. Since collecting bathymetry data using traditional survey methods is logistically difficult and expensive, there has been a long history, dating back to WWII, of attempts to estimate sufficiently accurate bathymetry based on various remote-­sensing signatures.

cBathy is an algorithm for bathymetry estimation from video imagery that is based on the well-­known dependence of wave celerity, c, on depth. From extensive testing, the current algorithm appears to be quite accurate and robust to noise. This wiki is intended to complement the journal paper (Holman et al., 2013), herein referred to as HPH13, and will not repeat the details of the algorithm or testing. Instead, this wiki is intended to serve as a user manual to introduce users to the practical aspects of cBathy collection and analysis and to provide a short description of the principles that allow cBathy to succeed even under very noisy conditions.

Holman, R., N. Plant, T. Holland (2013), cBathy: A robust algorithm for estimating nearshore bathymetry, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 118, 2595–2609, doi:10.1002/jgrc.20199.