Automated Visual Snow-Cover Measurement Using SRG and VMS

In this paper an automated snow-cover measuring system is developed, which analyzes the visual image of drifted snow and measures the height of snow-cover. The system consists of a measuring ruler, a CCD camera (Including infra-red module), and a PC which executes image processing, logs data and transfer the information to remotely located users via internet. The snow-depth is estimated based on the position of the lowest uncovered marker on the ruler which is estimated from the captured image. The distortion in the captured image is calibrated by an expansive coefficient curve and the calibrated image is compared to a Virtual Measuring Scale (VMS) for the accurate measurement.