How to view framegrabs on the web
View converted framegrabs in a web browser on any networked computer on the ship at http://beroe.wf.mbari.org/Tiburon/stills in YYYY/DDD directories. Information about the conversion process is below.

The vfc2web cron job
At 6pm local system time (always Pacific Time) a script called vfc2web runs on beroe under the vicki account. This script converts all of the original .rgb files to .png. This saves space, allows for direct viewing via a web browser, and retains all of the information of the original image.

The script then creates thumbnail image map web pages for all the images in the year-day. The vfc2web process may be run by hand after a dive. In /usr/people/vicki on beroe as user vicki, type at the "beroe%" prompt:

Images should now be visible in a web browser. If run manually, the cron job will still run automatically at the prescribed time to catch any framegrabs taken later.

The vfcd2web script leaves behind some DDD.savedRGBs directories inside the YYYY directory. If the .png conversion process was successful then this directory and all of its contents can be removed.

Some more details
Framegrabs are actually located in /usr/people/vicki/year/year-day/ directories. This is on an 18 GB disk, enough room to store several months worth of frame grabs with an average of about 200 frame captures per dive. There is a Tiburon/stills directory in /usr/people/vicki; this mirrors the shore-side web directory path. For web viewing we connect it to the actual location with a symbolic link, e.g.:

Note: The IA group usually makes this link as the routine part of the maintenence for this system. No action is required of the user.

File Management
If at all possoble, please leave all the files in /usr/people/vicki/YYYY/DDD until the ship connects back to the shore network. This will make archiving to shore systems easier and retains the images online for the duration of the expedition. (The DDD.savedRGBs directories can be removed to save space during an expedition.)

The Information Applications Group will clean up the disk after the ship has connected to the network.

How else can I see or copy these images?
The /usr/people/vicki directory is available on the Ship's network through Network Neighborhood. For example you can see frame grabs at the UNC path \\beroe\vicki.

This can be useful for copying to laptops to take advantage of local image processing software or for copying to CDROM.

First edited 10/6/2000 by Jennifer Paduan
Last edited 2/20/2001 by Mike McCann