30 Days of San Francisco Ship Traffic - Charted

April 2nd, 2008 · 7 Comments

Click Image For Hi-Resolution Version/

Being technologically oriented ship drivers we are easily excited by new web sites that combine these interests. Having worked closely with web based AIS (Digital Seas, EarthNC, ActiveCaptain, VslTrax… to name a few) providers during the Cosco Busan incident we are also increasingly becoming interested in digital ship tracking technology so to say we were excited to learn about the new and innovative AIS site Hi-Def San Francisco would be, well, an understatement. We will be sure to bring you more information on this site as details emerge but till that time enjoy the above image titled “30 Days of SF bay traffic“.

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Categories: Photo · Ports · San Francisco · USCG · Web 2.0 · design

Tags: · ais, google_maps, San Francisco, san_francisco_bay, Web 2.0, Web Design

7 responses so far ↓

1 razr643 // Apr 2, 2008 at 11:42 pm

cool chart gcapt
2 Augie // Apr 3, 2008 at 5:22 am

Why don’t we take what siitech.com (etc) has done, port the data to “Second Life,” have ship avatars derived from their ISO registrations and clickable DSC links on the Avatars.

This would allow Port officers and the Coast Guard among others to have real time, God’s eye views of the traffic situation. Radar overlays could reveal unreported traffic.

In Second Life, observers could place themselves on the ship avatars for a bridge (or bow, stern, etc) view of the traffic situation.

Could also be very useful in accident reconstruction as well.

I don’t have a business relationship with any of these providers. It does seem that this could provide a useful capability at a fraction of what government programs usually cost.
3 David Hindin // Apr 3, 2008 at 9:57 am

I had stumbled on the hd-sf.com site a few days ago while looking at impressive webcam imagery located at webmarin.com. I think that the webmarin image is derived from the hd-sf.com camera located the hills above Sausalito. I had missed the 30 day composite on hd-df which may be very new. The direct url is:

http://hd-sf.com/30days.html

It certainly is impressive.

I am a voyeur of the San Francisco Bay shipping scene with access to a live AIS feed. If I had an input I would suggest that the camera be shifted left (or wider) to show the whole Bay Bridge. The hd-sf.com scene does not even get to the “B” tower. The webmarin.com image gets just beyond the “C” pier. A mariner would love to see the the edge of Yerba Buena Island to include the DE span of COSCO BUSAN fame.

Even with the “limited” view there are impressive operations available. On the evening 29 March I was able to see imagery (on webmarin) and AIS of the cruise ship CELEBRITY MERCURY departing SFO 35 for Astoria. The imagery was mostly lights but very neat.

Both efforts are a slick addition to the local scene and provide a testing ground for new concepts.
4 David Hindin // Apr 3, 2008 at 10:06 am

I reserve the right to be wrong about the colocation of the two cameras mentioned above and referenced below.

Both are still impressive.

http://hd-sf.com/index.html

http://webmarin.com/
5 John Pettitt // Apr 3, 2008 at 10:44 am

webmarin is about 300 feet higher and 1000 feet west of my camera (hd-sf.com). The field of view is a trade off with detail. The wider the view the less detail. I’m looking at getting a much higher resolution camera which will allow high res crops of different virtual view ports.
6 John Pettitt // Apr 3, 2008 at 5:19 pm

I added an animation of a days worth of traffic

http://hd-sf.com/gallery/animatedships/player.html
7 admin // Apr 4, 2008 at 6:44 am

Amazing, thanks John!