Abstract

The application of imaging of sea surfaces has been investigated with respect to determination of sea wave spectra. Incoherent light is projected toward the sea surface, and the backscattered light is imaged with a camera. The primary scattering mechanism is assumed to be from particles suspended in the sea, so the backscattered intensity is determined primarily by the Fresnel coefficients. The ratio of the images detected at two orthogonal polarizations contains the desired information on the local slope of the sea surface, pixel by pixel, in one dimension. By integration, one can obtain the surface-height profile.

© 1995 Optical Society of America

Determination of wave slopes from photographs of the ocean surface: a new approach

Norman A. Peppers and John S. Ostrem
Appl. Opt. 17(21) 3450-3458 (1978)

Airborne measurements of laser backscatter from the ocean surface

Jack L. Bufton, Frank E. Hoge, and Robert N. Swift
Appl. Opt. 22(17) 2603-2618 (1983)

Efficient technique to determine backscattered light power for various atmospheric and oceanic sounding and imaging systems

Iosif L. Katsev, Eleonora P. Zege, Alexander S. Prikhach, and Igor N. Polonsky
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 14(6) 1338-1346 (1997)

Errors in estimating slope spectra from wave images

R. D. Chapman and G. B. Irani
Appl. Opt. 20(20) 3645-3652 (1981)

Theoretical analysis of polarization patterns from incoherent backscattering of light

Milun J. Raković and George W. Kattawar
Appl. Opt. 37(15) 3333-3338 (1998)