This website has keyboard navigation for many features. IIFI Shortcuts

For feedback and questions email to: fback (at) hpwren.ucsd.edu

This user guide describes the features of the new HPWREN web interface deployed since March 2025. Following the migration of HPWREN infrastructure to AWS in 2024, we began working on improving the user experience and utility of the website, the efficiency of camera image and sensor data access, as well as reducing the website complexity. This new HPWREN web interface has been developed by high-school student Daniel Farcas, who has been volunteering for UCSD/HPWREN since summer 2024. The improved user experience is the result of an iterative process with discussions around the utility of the new features, accessibility, and performance. The implementation relies heavily on JavaScript code running on the client browser for advanced image processing and management. Because of underlying technical limitations, some features (e.g., Augmented/Virtual Reality) are only available on specialized devices, such as Meta Quest 3, or mobile phones running Android and the Chrome Browser.

The homepage has thumbnails for all cameras of type Fixed Field of View (FOV) color. In the previous system, we used the name Mobotix to refer to these cameras. However, Mobotix is a camera brand, so we replaced the name with the generic term Fixed FOV, which is shortened in dropped down lists as FFOV. The name change was done solely in the user interface; the internal IDs for camera sites have not been changed.

The sites are listed alphabetically. The site name is followed by its coordinates (rounded) and weather data (if there is a weather sensor deployed at the same site), updated in real time. For each site, the thumbnails for the cameras of the specific type (for the homepage, it's Fixed FOV color) are updated every minute (with slight delays possible in the acquisition pipeline). The name of the camera is displayed under the thumbnail, and it includes the type of the camera and the orientation. Clicking on the thumbnail opens the Interactive Image Flow Interface (IIFI ). To download the full resolution image, click on the camera name under the thumbnail, which has the download icon in front of the name. Clicking on the site name opens a custom view that has all cameras of all types from that site.

The top menu includes links to overview pages for different types of cameras:

• All Fixed FOV Color (the landing page). Most sites have 4 of these color cameras aligned to the cardinal directions (thus, their names have the suffix N, E, S, or W), each having a 90° horizontal view.
• All Fixed FOV Monochrome: Most sites have 4 of these monochrome cameras aligned to the cardinal directions, each having a 90° horizontal view.
• All Specialized FFOV: These are all FFOV cameras that do not fall into the categories above. For example, cameras with 75° or 180° horizontal view, or thermal cameras paired with Fixed FOV with 36°/60° horizontal view.
• All PTZ: Most sites have 2 of these Pan-Tilt-Zoom cameras, which are often called North & South, but their orientation can change. Each camera has a 60° horizontal view.
• All cameras: Displays all types of cameras.

There are some buttons at the top right side under the menu:

• The Info button will open this User Guide including the Change Log. We are releasing updates every few weeks, and here you can find out what the latest changes are.
• The button with the light/dark circle changes the color theme for the background.
• The button with 2 squares changes the size of the thumbnails. The thumbnail size has width 160px the first time you open the page. The button opens a slider for width between 100px - 1000px. The user's preferences for thumbnail size and light/dark theme are saved into the browser so they persist across sessions or tabs.
• The Map button shows or hides the map.
• The red LIVE icon is not a clickable button, it just shows that data is refreshed automatically every minute. To save bandwidth, the image refresh stops when the tab is changed and resumes when the tab is refocused. Switching windows will not stop the refresh.

Furthermore, the earthquake waveform image display at the bottom of the page can be turned OFF/ON.

To see all cameras deployed at the same site, click on a site name above the thumbnails in any overview page. It opens a Custom View that displays all cameras of all types from that site, followed by weather data if a sensor is deployed at the site. The images and weather data are refreshed in real-time.

The Image List button allows users to generate a listing of images. You can select a camera, enter a start and end time. When you generate the listing, the progress bar shows all 3h blocks processed. The output is a text file with the links to all images requested, which you can download with other tools, such as curl, wget. The listing is just for images not videos, because the file names of images reflect the timestamp of images and there are some variations in the acquisition process. However, all videos have standardized filenames.

Sometimes researchers only need the listing within one 3h block per day or just one image per day. The drop down has these options; in these cases, the start time is ignored, and we consider just the end time for the query.

Example wget command to download images once you get the listing: $ cat listing.txt | cut -b21-500 | wget -i-

The Slideshow button in the menu bar opens a slideshow of the current cameras in a new tab. When opened from Custom View, it shows only the selected cameras. When opened from an overview page for a specific type Color/Monochrome/Specialized/PTZ/All, it shows the cameras of that type. The slideshow currently includes 26 different zoom/pan transitions and displays each image for 10 seconds. The site and camera name at the bottom is a link that opens the IIFI for that camera in a new tab. Pressing the space bar pauses the slideshow after zooming out of the image. To exit the slideshow, just close the tab as it's created in a new tab from the cameras page.

Access the map by clicking the Map button in the top right. The map shows the cameras and weather sensors.

• In the menu on the left side, you can show/hide different camera types displayed on the map: PTZs, Fixed FOV Monochrome, Fixed FOV Color, or Specialized FFOV. The camera filters are in a panel that can be collapsed by the button. The camera markers increase size if you zoom in.
• PTZ Cameras: Shown as red/yellow circles in the middle.
• Fixed FOV Color Cameras: Shown as blue/cyan sectors
• Fixed FOV Monochrome Cameras: Shown as green/light green sectors
• Specialized Cameras: Shown as purple/magenta sectors
• Displaying the fire perimeters is work in progress (data is outdated).
• The Map Type dropdown has the Google Maps options of Map, Terrain, and Satellite.
• You can use other features of Google Maps such as Zoom in/out, or Full Screen (bottom right).

You can click on camera markers on the map to select/deselect cameras to be monitored in the Custom View. You can also select multiple cameras that can see a target location by dropping a pin:

• Click anywhere on the map to place a green pin. Alternatively, use the Go To feature and enter the latitude & longitude coordinates; the map is centered to the new coordinates.
• Drag the pin to reposition it
• Use the Range slider to adjust the circle size
• The green pin has a tooltip that shows its coordinates and each site that can see it. For each site, it shows how far and in what direction the target is.
• Green lines indicate uninterrupted line of sight to a camera. Red lines show where terrain blocks the view
• Select Cameras button: Select all cameras that can see your pinned location.

The map shows ellipses (plumes) in each site. The color represents the temperature as a fading gradient (purple to red). The left menu includes a legend with the gradient for temperature, and the thresholds for the colors vary by the month of the year. For easier identification of small temperature differences between locations, the temperature ranges are illustrated within monthly averages (for example, Jan 30F - 75F, Jul 50F - 100F).

The gradient's shape represents the wind intensity: a circle for no wind and increasingly elongated ellipse for stronger wind. The length of the ellipse represents wind speed and the direction of the ellipse represents wind direction, meaning where the wind is going from the camera. For example, a 90° wind is coming from East so the ellipse is shown as starting from the camera and going West.

When hovering on the weather ellipse, the tooltip also shows all the weather data with the timestamp. The map is refreshed in real-time with about 1 minute delay since data was measured by the sensor. If a sensor is active, but doesn't have data at the specific time, then it is displayed as a white circle.

When the conditions (humidity < 25 %RH & wind direction 10° - 110° & wind speed > 25 mph) are met, a "Santa Ana winds" warning is displayed as a red border around the ellipse wind plume.

It is possible to create personalized custom views by selecting only the cameras you want to monitor.

Clicking New Custom View will open a new tab, which allows creating different custom views in separate tabs. There are several ways to select a specific set of cameras you want to monitor, by using the map or the dropdown menus:

1. Use the first dropdown list to select a site.
2. Use the second dropdown list to select a camera from that site. When you click on a camera, it is automatically added to the Selected Cameras list and it is highlighted on the map. To minimize clicks, there are options to select all cameras of a given type.
3. Repeat the process to select more sites and cameras, as desired.
4. The Real Time view will display the current images from these cameras and will continue to refresh every minute. It automatically updates every time you select a camera.
5. If you want to remove cameras, click the button to remove a camera from the list or clear the entire list with the button.

Note: Switching between the Custom View and various camera views (e.g., All FFOV Color) will clear the Custom View selection and start fresh. You can use the back button in the browser to go back to your previous view. If you want to keep your Custom View, we recommend opening the other view in a new tab. You can create several Custom Views in different tabs and the system will remember your selection.

There are collapse buttons for the Selected Cameras list and the entire sidebar. When the sidebar is collapsed and the map is open, the cameras will scroll in their own pane, keeping the map visible at all times.

There are several ways to access the historical images: (1) use the Images or Videos menu from the Custom View to see a snapshot in time for multiple cameras, (2) use IIFI to navigate on the timeline for a camera, and (3) obtain the Image List and download the images.

The Custom View has three menu tabs: Real-Time, Images (to get the archived images), and Videos (to get the archived videos).

In the Real-Time tab, the current live images are automatically refreshed every minute when the tab is active. Look for the "LIVE" red indicator to confirm the active refreshing. Refreshing pauses when you switch tabs, but resumes when you return. Clicking on a thumbnail opens it at full resolution in the Interactive Image Flow Interface (IIFI), which starts in LIVE mode.

In the Images tab, you can view images from the past 90 days; data older than 90 days is archived in AWS S3 Glacier Deep Archive, so it is not available on the website. You can select the date, hour, and minute (in the user's timezone) to see the images retrospectively. There are arrows and next to the date selector to easily navigate a day before/after from the displayed date, at the same time (going in the future will be displayed as an error). There is a Now button to quickly reset to today and current time. HPWREN cameras are in Pacific timezone. Moving the time or minute slider from the left menu under Images will automatically refresh the selected image thumbnails from all cameras. Note that the caching here is up to the browser, so the images may "blink" at each slider drag to retrieve the next image. Clicking on a thumbnail image opens it at full resolution in IIFI with a slider at the bottom to use what we call the Interactive Image Flow Interface (IIFI), which starts at the specified time.

In the Videos tab, you can see the videos from the past 90 days. Each video contains a 3-hour interval in Pacific Time. Thus, you need to select the date and the 3h interval. As the Custom View can contain multiple cameras, for every time block you can run the videos in parallel from all cameras. The button also changes the video size size. You can play, pause, resume, or restart all the videos at once with the / / buttons.

The weather is visualized on the map as follows: wind direction and intensity are represented by ellipses, and temperature is shown as color gradient for the ellipse. Hover over markers on the map to obtain detailed weather information. In the Images tab, when you drag the hour or minute slider or change the date, the whole map refreshes and shows the weather at that time. Note: You need to have at least one camera selected in the Custom View to make the weather on the map refresh when you change the time. The weather indicators are currently not shown on the map in the Video mode.

If all cameras selected are from the same site and if that site has a weather sensor, the page includes a weather plot with the last 48 hours data (wind speed, temperature, and relative humidity) and a table with the most recent reading. The plot provides a site-level view of the weather data across time. If the plot is blank, there is an issue with the sensor data acquisition. The table displays all readings available at the site from the list below. If the sensor doesn't transmit a value, it is omitted. If the sensor reports an invalid value, it is shown as Unavailable.

• Wind direction minimum
• Wind direction average
• Wind direction maximum
• Wind speed minimum
• Wind speed average
• Wind speed maximum
• Air temperature
• Relative humidity
• Air pressure
• Rain accumulation
• Rain duration
• Rain intensity
• Hail accumulation
• Hail duration
• Hail intensity

Units are converted for:

• m/s - mph
• C - F
• hPa (millibars) - inHg.

The sensor data refresh is synced with the Real Time image refresh. Data is uploaded every minute from the sensor to the backend database and the website queries data every 30 seconds. So, in general in the Real-Time mode the weather on the map and in the plot and table is updated automatically every minute, although slight delays are possible.

In the retrospective Images mode, the weather on the map and in the plot and table corresponds to the date and time selected. The plot displays all the consecutive days for which it has data. So, clicking the / arrows will add that day to the plot; If a new date is selected from the calendar, then the plot displays only that day.

Currently, the plots show wind speed (min, max, average), temperature, and relative humidity, all on the same canvas. The horizontal axis shows the timestamps, and the vertical axis shows the imperial units for all three metrics. The axes automatically scale based on the visible data. The size of the plot automatically scales to the size of the window. The plot has pan/zoom features. Scrolling vertically zooms in/out and scrolling horizontally pans left/right. You can also pan by right-clicking and dragging. On mobile, use two fingers to pan/zoom.

The IIFI is a powerful tool for analyzing image sequences as moving the timeline slider allows one to quickly go back and forth to see changes in the image. IIFI preloads some images before/after your current time selection; however, moving further at different points in the timeline requires loading a new set of images, so you may see the image canvas "blink" while reloading.

There are several ways to navigate the timeline: by using the mouse and slider, by using the arrow keys or other keyboard shortcuts , or by jumping to a specific time with the Go To button. If you see something interesting and want to share it with others, you have to select the start & end time of the sequence. Just navigate to the first image you want, click on [Select Start] and that is selected as the start image. Then navigate to the last image you want, click on [Select End] and that is selected as the end image. Now you can only navigate between these 2 points. You can click on the share button and get the link that encodes start & end times, which you can share with others.

The weather summary is displayed in IIFI after the camera title (below the image) in both retrospective and live mode. Moving the slider updates both the images and the weather.

Bottom Menu:

• Timeline Slider: Slide left/right to navigate through time.
• Zoom: Use the zoom slider or scroll. Now you can move the timeline slider and see the same zoomed section.
• Pan: Drag the image.
• Go To button: Jump to a specific date and time.
• Play mode: Automatically play through images at adjustable speeds. If you click Play and leave it running, it will automatically switch to Live when the time reaches present.
• Range Selection: Select Start and End points for a specific time range. This is useful for sharing, or if wanting to play a specific sequence.
• List: Obtain an image listing for the selected camera, prepopulated with the current time or the selected range.
• Download button: Access the full resolution raw image.
• Share button: Create shareable links to specific time ranges. Remember to select a Start/End Time or LIVE before sharing. Copying the URL from the browser will not work as it doesn't have all parameters encoded. Click the Share button and use the generated link. In PANO mode, the Share button creates a link that encodes the PANO view azimuth.
• Live mode button: Click LIVE to enable real-time image refresh.
• Overlay button: see below .

Top Right Menu:

• Adjust Image: Use three sliders to adjust brightness, contrast, exposure, and saturation. The settings are kept when switching cameras.
• PANO mode button: PANO mode shows a 360° panorama.
• Lens Correction: Useful in PANO mode. Compensates for fisheye lens distortion on Mobotix cameras using spherical correction. Also adjusts pitch, roll, and yaw for the cameras where we have manually specified the correction values in a configuration file.
• The Info button will open this User Guide, jumped to the IIFI section.

You can compare differences between images with adjustable transparency overlay. Overlays are useful during the night or when there is a lot of smoke and you can't see the landscape features — overlay a daytime image. To use Overlay:

1. Navigate to the time you want to use as overlay (a baseline from a few days ago when the weather was clear), then click the Overlay button. On the top of the button is displayed the time of the image you chose as baseline overlay. Note that you can't set a LIVE image as baseline overlay, so if you are in LIVE mode, the Overlay button is disabled.
2. Navigate to the time you want to overlay on.
3. Adjust the overlay transparency to see the differences between these 2 images at different timestamps.
4. Navigating on the timeline changes the 2nd image, but keeps the baseline overlay (on top).
5. To change the baseline overlay, click again on the Overlay button to close it, which removes the baseline. Then navigate on the new baseline and click again the Overlay button to select a new baseline.

In the bottom right of IIFI there is a camera selector to switch to any camera from the same site. The selector is identical to the camera markers on the map and it will highlight which camera(s) is currently shown. Use this selector to switch between cameras at the same site and see the image with the same timestamp. Keyboard shortcut to switch between cameras: pressing the keys , and . (meaning < and >) rotates through all cameras at that site in this order: Color, Monochrome, PTZ, Specialized, then the cycle repeats.

PANO Mode lets you view 360° panoramas by combining four cameras of the current imager (color/monochrome). PANO mode can be viewed with/without the Lens Correction. Because the Mobotix cameras have more than 90° view, they have areas of overlap. The fisheye algorithm corrects the lens distortion and crops the image to 90° view. At the bottom, there is a degrees scale and also the timestamp when each image was taken (local timezone). There may be issues with camera alignments, so the 360° PANO stitching and the degree scale may not be perfect. If you notice that the degrees are drawn wrong or the camera misaligned, please contact us at fback (at) hpwren.ucsd.edu

PANO mode works in retrospective and LIVE mode, with all other IIFI features such as Zoom, Overlay, Adjust Image, and Play. Special controls in PANO mode:

• Rotate by dragging the mouse.
• Zoom with the Zoom button or scroll.
• Double-click to reset the view.
• Press R to toggle auto-rotate at 3 levels of speed. Press R multiple times to cycle between speeds.
• Raycaster: Click anywhere to see the azimuth of the target. It is displayed in yellow at the bottom of the screen, above the camera name.

It is possible to overlay color on monochrome cameras or any other combination. This is especially powerful in PANO mode, but it can be used outside PANO (in that case make sure you use two cameras in the same direction).

1. Select PANO mode, then Lens Correction.
2. Use the camera selector to pick the camera you want to use as overlay, then click the Overlay button. In PANO mode, it's not just one camera, but a set of 4 (or how many of that type are available). For example, select a color FFOV camera. Note: PTZ are not displayed on PANO mode as their orientation changes, so if you select a PTZ, you will exit PANO mode.
3. Navigate to the camera you want to overlay on. For example, select a monochrome FFOV camera.
4. Adjust the overlay transparency.

How to set up your Meta Quest 3 A Guide To Using The Meta Quest Browser

When using a Virtual Reality headset (e.g., Meta Quest 3, Quest 3S) or other devices supporting WebXR (e.g., Chrome browser on Android), the IIFI displays an additional button START XR with black background. Pressing this button results in an immersive experience, where the web browser of these devices is no longer displayed. Using PANO mode, images from multiple cameras are displayed around the user into a 360° view (e.g., 4 images from Mobotix cameras).

Warning: Usage of AR/VR modes with such headsets can lead to dizziness, loss of equilibrium, or other hazards. Please operate your device carefully, in a safe environment.

In the 360° experience, the Overlay feature applies to all cameras currently displayed and acts across the entire field of vision. Since the Mobotix cameras have two separate imagers (color and monochrome) in the same direction, a new Stereo view mode is available, where the left eye sees the 4 monochrome images and the right eye sees the color images. This mode significantly enhances depth perception for close-up subjects, but can be disorienting because of the combined monochrome and color views on different eyes. In such situations, adjusting the saturation of the color cameras to zero will make the experience more balanced with grayscale images for both eyes.

The immersive experience can be controlled in two ways: (a) natively using hand-held controllers and the shortcuts below, or (b) by showing the browser concurrently with the XR mode (e.g., pressing the Meta key on the controller) and using the features directly from the browser. In the native mode, the following commands are available on the buttons and joysticks of the hand-held controllers:

• You can use the right joystick to navigate on the timeline.
• Autorotate: Press X to autorotate and press X multiple times to change the rotation speed.
• Transparency: To change the opacity, hold left squeeze and press X (50%-100% in increments of 10%).
• Zoom/Move: Use the left joystick to zoom and rotate, in the horizontal plane.
• Raycaster: Hold the trigger button of either controller while pointing the "laser" at the images. If you move the controller while holding the trigger the readout changes. Click both triggers to hide the readout.

Q: The map takes too much space on the screen. How do I hide it?
A: Click on the Map button at the top right of the page.

Q: How do I decouple the map from the thumbnails? I use multiple screens, so I want to move the map to one screen and the thumbnails to another.
A: The map can't be directly decoupled, but you can use a good workaround. Click on New Custom View, which opens a new tab and makes the map bigger. Collapse the side menu with dropdown lists to make the map occupy the whole window. Then move this tab to another screen.

Q: The thumbnails are too big, and I preferred the smaller thumbnails from the older HPWREN site. How do I resize them?
A: Click on the Thumbnail Size button showing two squares at the top right of the page near the Map button. If you can't drag the slider easily in your browser, use the left and right arrow keys.

Q: How do I change the background color?
A: Click on the Light/Dark button at the top right of the page.

Q: Where are the old Mobotix cameras?
A: Mobotix is a camera brand, so we replaced the name with the generic term Fixed Field of View, which is shortened in menus as Fixed FOV and in dropdown lists as FFOV. The name change was done solely in the user interface; the internal IDs for camera sites (like pi-n-mobo-c) have not been changed.

Q: Where do I find the help or what's changed in the latest release?
A: You're already here on the User Guide! Click on the Info button at the top right of the page to open this User Guide, which includes the Change Log at the end.

Q: What shortcuts can I use?
A: Click on the Info button at the top right of the page and navigate to the IIFI Shortcuts .

Q: What timezone are the cameras in?
A: The cameras operate in Pacific Time, and the Videos tab is in Pacific Time. Anywhere else, the interface lets you select times in your local timezone when viewing images.

Q: How long are images and videos stored?
A: Currently, images and videos are stored in AWS S3 Standard for 90 days. After 90 days, images are deleted and the corresponding 3h videos are archived in S3 Glacier. Retrieval from Glacier is done on request and takes about 1 day.

Q: What's IIFI?
A: IIFI stands for the Interactive Image Flow Interface, which allows you to navigate through the images back and forth on the timeline much better than video, supporting advanced features like Lens Correction, PANO view, Overlay, Adjust Image, and more.

Q: How do I know when the images are refreshed automatically?
A: When the LIVE icon is red on the overview pages or in IIFI, then the images and weather data are refreshed automatically. In IIFI, you can turn on/off the LIVE refresh by clicking the LIVE button. On the overview pages, it's not a button but just an icon, as the overview pages are refreshed by default while the tab is active. Thus, when you don't monitor the page (e.g., when you are away from your computer), please switch the tab or minimize the window to stop the automatic refresh, which reduces the requests to the server.

Important: The interface refreshes the images & weather automatically. You should NOT use your own implementation of auto refresh as it adds unnecessary load on our infrastructure.

Q: How do I download a full resolution raw image?
A: To download the full resolution image, click on the Download icon. On an overview page, the icon is in front of the name of the camera displayed under a thumbnail, so just click on the name of the camera. In IIFI, the Download button is in the bottom menu on the right side.

Q: How do I download a set of raw images?
A: See Image List .

Q: How do I get a site-specific view to see all cameras from that location?
A: Click on a site name from any overview page. It opens a Custom View that has all cameras of all types from that site.

Q: What images are displayed in the slideshow?
A: The Slideshow button in the menu bar opens a Slideshow of the current cameras in a new tab. When opened from Custom View, it shows only the selected cameras. When opened from an overview page for a specific type Color/Monochrome/Specialized/PTZ/All, it shows the cameras of that type. The slideshow currently includes 26 different zoom/pan transitions and it runs at 10 seconds per image.

Q: How do I stop/exit the slideshow or go to a camera?
A: Pressing the ␣ space bar pauses the slideshow after zooming out of the image. The Slideshow is in a new tab from the cameras page, so just close the tab to exit it. The site and camera name at the bottom is a link that opens the IIFI for that camera in a new tab.

Q: Can I create multiple custom views at once?
A: Yes. Clicking New Custom View will open a new tab, which allows creating different Custom Views in separate tabs.

Q: How do I share a view with a specific time range I've found interesting?
A: 1) If you want to share a Custom View, copy the URL from the browser or use the Share button to get a QR code.
2) If you want to share a Custom View at a specific retrospective time, just go to the Images menu tab and pick the time, then copy the URL from the browser or use the Share button to get the QR code. Note: The URL stops updating if you drag the sliders quickly — wait 2 seconds, then click the Share button to cause a URL update (and get the QR code).
3) In IIFI for a camera, select your Start and End times using the buttons beside the slider, then click the Share button to copy a link to your clipboard. When in IIFI, do not copy the URL from the browser as it doesn't encode all parameters.

Q: How do I know which cameras can see a specific location?
A: Click on the map to drop a pin , then use the Select Cameras button to automatically select all cameras with line of sight to that location.

Q: How do I dismiss the large tooltip on the green pin on the map, while I am dragging the pin?
A: Press esc or ` to close the currently open tooltip. Hovering over the target again will show the tooltip again.

Q: I'm pressing a key in IIFI but nothing is happening!
A: The keyboard event is being sent to the wrong target. Click on the canvas to focus the correct element (blue border around the time slider).

Q: How current is the weather data shown on the map?
A: In Real-Time/LIVE mode, weather data updates every minute. In retrospective mode, it shows conditions from the selected time.

Q: Why aren't the weather details displayed for some sites?
A: Not all sites have weather sensors, or the sensors may be temporarily offline.

Q: Can I view multiple cameras simultaneously in IIFI?
A: You can switch between cameras using the camera selector in the right corner. You can overlay different cameras from the same orientation. In PANO mode you can see all 4 FFOV cameras stitched together as 360° panorama.

Q: Why do I see "No image!" sometimes in IIFI?
A: We are displaying images for every minute on the timeline, but sometimes there are issues with image acquisition and there is no image with a timestamp within that minute. Also, sometimes the canvas is empty and the timestamp displayed as red or yellow, meaning that the request to fetch images failed or didn't get a response yet from the backend — this does not necessarily mean that no image exist, and it's recommended to wait a bit and try to navigate back and forth on the timeline around the desired timestamp to see if the image is eventually retrieved.

Q: Does overlay work with LIVE data?
A: Yes and no — you can overlay a fixed image on top of the LIVE image but not the other way around. You cannot select a LIVE image as baseline overlay, so you need to navigate in the past to select the baseline. Then, that image can be overlaid onto LIVE images.

Video tutorial: https://youtu.be/enH9dsej9Oc

11/01/2025

General

• New User Guide created and accessible via the Info button. The help is now a separate page that opens in a new tab.
• The Show Selected Cameras button (in Custom View) is removed: to improve the user experience, the images are automatically updated when cameras are added/removed via the sidebar menu or the map.
• The New Custom View button has a green background to make it more visible.

10/18/2025

IIFI PANO Mode

• Now allows overlays between different types of cameras. For example, you can overlay color and monochrome cameras, which have the same field of view, or you can overlay color and thermal cameras, which have different fields of views.
• The Fisheye Correction button is not just for fisheye but now also corrects the alignment for roll, pitch, yaw (for cameras that we manually corrected). The button remains visible for all cameras.

IIFI XR Mode - Quest 3

• Stereoscopic View: The Mobotix cameras have two separate imagers (color and monochrome) in the same direction. The new Stereo view displays the color images on the right eye and the monochrome images on the left eye. To toggle Stereo, squeeze the right controller then press B.
• The START XR button is moved to the top right corner next to the other buttons.
• To use overlays on Quest 3: press A or B to select the camera set you want to select as overlay, then right squeeze and press A. Now you can press A or B to select the camera set you want to overlay on. You can adjust the overlay transparency with right joystick up/down.
• The Zoom no longer slides out further than the origin.
• XR Mode can also be viewed on Android mobile devices using Chrome browser.

General

• On the Images tab, the images and map are refreshed automatically when selecting a date. (Previously they auto refreshed only when dragging the sliders.)
• The page title includes "IIFI: " + Site Name when IIFI is open.

09/30/2025

IIFI XR Mode - Quest 3

• Press X to autorotate and press X multiple times to change the rotation speed. To change the transparency, hold left squeeze and press X.
• New implementation to Zoom where you are looking at. It still uses the left joystick to zoom and rotate.

IIFI PANO Mode

• The new McNally cameras are displayed at their full size, i.e. a larger vertical angle of the sphere.
• The Share button now creates a link that encodes the PANO view azimuth. Remember to select a Start/End Time or LIVE before sharing.

General

• To minimize the number of clicks to select cameras, now a camera is automatically added in the list when you click on it in the drop down (the button is not needed anymore, so it's removed).
• The Slideshow runs at slower speed (10 seconds instead of 5 seconds).

09/16/2025

IIFI PANO Mode

• The degree scale at the bottom is improved and also displays the timestamp when each image was taken (local timezone).
• The auto-rotate now has 3 levels of speed, press R multiple times to cycle between speeds.
• New Raycaster feature: Click somewhere on the images to get the azimuth of the target.

IIFI XR Mode - Quest 3

• To use Raycaster: hold the trigger button of either controller while pointing the "laser" at the images. If you move the controller while holding the trigger the readout changes. Click both triggers to hide the readout.
• You can use the left joystick to move closer/further and rotate the view.

09/04/2025

General

• "Experimental" cameras have been renamed as "Specialized FFOV" in menus, the map legend, and dropdown lists. All thermal, hyperspectral, and 180° cameras are now listed under Specialized FFOV. We also added the imagers VNIR, SWIR for hyperspectral.
• The thumbnails for 180° view cameras occupy the space of two normal thumbnails.

Map

• The Go To feature now uses negative longitude instead of West (positive) longitude. Also the map is centered to the new coordinates.

IIFI

• The Fisheye Correction feature is enabled only for Mobotix Color/Monochrome cameras, and it won't be displayed for PTZs and 180°, which are already corrected.
• Closing IIFI now returns to the same spot in the overview page from where IIFI was opened.
• The play speed is now 4 FPS by default.

IIFI PANO Mode

• Pressing the R key toggles PANO auto-rotate.
• The 180° view cameras are now correctly shown in PANO mode (so, two 180° cameras cover the view all around).
• An indicator at the bottom displays the azimuth of the center of the screen (not the position of the cursor...yet).
• The camera selector now highlights all 4 cameras when in PANO mode.

IIFI XR Mode - Quest 3

• You can use the right joystick to navigate on the timeline.
• You can use button X to change the opacity of the panoramic view (50%-100% in increments of 10%).

07/04/2025

IIFI

• The IIFI has been completely re-implemented with WebGL and all prior features are available except the HUD display for degrees arcs. The performance is improved for zoom in and play.
• A new view for 360° panoramas is now available in IIFI from the top right PANO button. This mode shows 4 cameras of the current imager (color/monochrome).
• PANO mode works in retrospective and LIVE mode including all other IIFI features such as zoom, overlay, adjust, and play.
• PANO mode can be viewed with/without the Fisheye Correction. Because the cameras have more than 90° view, they have areas of overlap. The fisheye algorithm corrects the lens distortion and crops the image to 90° view.
• There may be still issues with camera alignments, so the 360° PANO stitching may not be perfect.
• When PANO mode is viewed on a computer, you can rotate the view by dragging, zoom with the mouse wheel, and double-click to reset view.
• PANO mode can also be viewed on WebXR compatible devices such as Quest 3.

Map

• In the map there is a Go To feature for the user to type in the latitude & longitude coordinates.

Slideshow

• Pressing the space bar pauses the slideshow after zooming out of the image.

General

• The earthquake waveform image display can be turned OFF/ON.

05/26/2025

Slideshow

• Created a new Slideshow button in the menu bar that opens a slideshow of the current cameras in a new tab. When opened from Custom View, it shows only the selected cameras. When opened from an overview page for a specific type Color/Monochrome/PTZ/All/Experimental, it shows the cameras of that type. The slideshow currently includes 26 different zoom/pan transitions. The site and camera name at the bottom is a link that opens the IIFI for that camera in a new tab.

IIFI

• Added a selector in the bottom right corner to switch to any camera from the same site. The selector is identical to the camera markers on the map and it will highlight which camera is currently shown.
• Keyboard shortcut to switch between cameras: pressing the keys , and . (meaning < and >) rotates through all cameras at that site in this order: Color, Monochrome, PTZ, Experimental, then the cycle repeats.
• The Heads Up Display shows the degrees lines at the center and draws the curved lines until approx 90 degrees. Accurate only for Fixed FOV Color/Monochrome. The exact degrees may be inconsistent between cameras, and we plan to address this in the future. If you notice that the degrees are drawn wrong or the camera misaligned, please contact us.
• A new Fisheye Correction button (key F) at the top right. It uses spherical correction and crops the image to approximately 90°.

Map

• Changed the color of the Monochrome camera markers from black to dark green. When selected, they are still light green.

04/29/2025

General UI

• When the sidebar is collapsed and the map is open, the cameras will scroll in their own pane, keeping the map visible at all times.

IIFI

• Added a new Adjust button with 3 sliders to change the brightness, contrast, and saturation of the image.
• The tick marks in the HUD automatically adjust their spacing.

04/11/2025

General UI

• The collapse button sidebar no longer appears on the main page (those pages are handled differently than Custom View).
• Real Time requests are optimized when IIFI is open.

04/08/2025

General UI

• Added collapse buttons for the Selected Cameras list and the entire sidebar.
• Added LIVE indicator in Real Time view. To save bandwidth, the image refresh stops when the tab is changed and resumes when the tab is refocused. Switching windows will not stop the refresh.
• Added an automatic update checker.

IIFI

• Added a Heads Up Display button that shows angle tick marks for the camera, the view angle of the camera, the cursor angle, and the wind direction (if available). This is not shown for PTZ cameras.
• Fixed back button behavior.

03/30/2025

Map

• The map type dropdown is moved to the left corner and has Map, Terrain, and Satellite options.
• The camera filters are in a pane that can be collapsed by the button.

General UI

• The loader in Images no longer keeps spinning if the fetch failed.
• Logging stored in a database.

03/10/2025

General UI

• The slider to resize thumbnails goes down to width 100 so that more images can fit on the screen on mobile.
• On the overview pages, the title of the sites is split on 2 lines (1st line with name, 2nd line with the coordinates and weather).
• On mobile, the menu and map are simplified.

02/26/2025

Weather

• A weather plot is displayed in Custom View if one or more cameras are selected from a single site. The plot provides a site-level view of the weather data across time.
• In the Real Time tab, the weather plot shows data for the last 48 hours and it keeps refreshing every 30 seconds to add any new values that may have arrived.
• In the Images tab, the plot shows the day selected and it is possible to add more days from the calendar navigation. Clicking the arrows and goes to the previous/next day and adds the data for that day to the plot. If a new date is selected from the calendar, then the hour slider needs to be moved at least once to trigger the refresh of the plot.
• Currently, the plots show wind speed (min, max, average), temperature, and relative humidity, all on the same canvas.
• The horizontal axis shows the timestamps, and the vertical axis shows the imperial units for all three metrics. The axes automatically scale based on the data.
• The size of the plot automatically scales to the size of the window.
• The plot has pan/zoom features. Scrolling vertically zooms in/out and scrolling horizontally pans left/right. You can also pan by right-clicking and dragging. On mobile, use two fingers to pan/zoom.

02/06/2025

General UI

• Added a new camera imager "Thermal". Currently displayed under All Experimental and filtered by the experimental button on the map.

Weather

• Added a "Santa Ana winds" warning displayed as a red border around the ellipse wind plume. It is displayed for each sensor that meets the criteria: humidity < 25 %RH & wind direction 10 - 110° & wind speed > 25 mph. For example, go to 01/23/2025 to see the Santa Ana winds marked on the map.
• Added an attribute for active/inactive sensors. If a sensor is inactive, it is not displayed on the map. If a sensor is active, but doesn't have data at the specific time, then it is displayed as a white circle.
• The weather summary is displayed in IIFI after the camera title in both retrospective and live mode. Moving the slider updates both the images and the weather.

02/04/2025

Map

• The weather data is now available retrospectively when the Images tab is active.
• When you drag the hour or minute slider or change the date, the whole map refreshes and shows the weather at that time.
• The weather button in the map sidebar has a loader icon while weather data is being fetched.
• Fixed the auto-zoom on the map that happened in some cases when the time sliders were dragged. Now the map will recenter and auto-zoom only when you modify the Selected Cameras and there is a single site selected.
• Note: You need to have at least one camera selected in the Custom View to make the map refresh when you change the time.

01/09/2025

Map

• The wind direction plumes now point the direction the wind is going. The sensor reports where the wind is coming from — for example, a 90° wind is coming from East so the plume is shown as starting from the camera and going West.
• The weather tooltip also shows the timestamp of the sensor data.
• The green pin (that you drop and can drag around) now has a tooltip that shows its coordinates and each site that can see it. For each site, it shows how far and in what direction the target is.

IIFI

• The Go To button works even if you are in Live mode.
• If you click Play, it will automatically switch to Live when the time reaches present.

General UI

• The help button now has an icon instead of a ?.

12/26/2024

Map

• The camera markers increase size if you zoom in.
• The markers show the full FOV for Experimental cameras.
• The map is restricted to the HPWREN cameras region — you cannot pan/zoom outside of the area.
• Real-time temperature, wind direction, and wind speed averages are depicted on the map at each location.
• The temperature is represented as a fading gradient (for example, 30°F = purple - 75°F = red).
• The the gradient's shape represents the wind intensity — circle for no wind, increasingly elongated ellipse for stronger wind. The wind direction is indicated by the direction of the ellipse.
• For easier identification of small temperature differences between locations, the temperature ranges are illustrated within monthly averages (for example, Jan 30°F - 75°F, Jul 50°F - 100°F).
• Custom tooltips have been added to each camera and sensor independently.
• Note: The weather indicators are not shown on the map if the Mode (in the sidebar) is not Real Time.

General UI

• The image/video caption is moved below the image/video so that the images/videos will remain aligned if the caption text wraps.

12/08/2024

Sensor data

• The sensor data is now read from a JSON file (updated every minute for all sites) instead of using an embedded <iframe>.
• All R0 measurements are displayed:
  • Wind direction minimum
  • Wind direction average
  • Wind direction maximum
  • Wind speed minimum
  • Wind speed average
  • Wind speed maximum
  • Air temperature
  • Relative humidity
  • Air pressure
  • Rain accumulation
  • Rain duration
  • Rain intensity
  • Hail accumulation
  • Hail duration
  • Hail intensity
• If the sensor doesn't transmit a value, it is omitted. If the sensor reports an invalid value, it is shown as Unavailable.
• Units are converted for:
  • m/s mph
  • °C °F
  • hPa (millibars) inHg.
• The sensor data refresh is synced with the Real Time image refresh. Data is uploaded every minute and the website refreshes every 30 seconds.

Map

• Temperature, wind, humidity, and pressure are shown (if available) as tooltip when hovering on a camera marker.
• Fixed bug on mobile where dragging a camera marker would select the camera and pan the map.

General UI

• The overview pages for all cameras (All Fixed FOV Color, All PTZ, etc.) displays in the heading for each site also the weather summary if available. The weather refresh is synced with the RT image refresh.
• The title for a "site view" also shows the same weather summary, if you are in Real Time mode. The weather is not displayed for Images, Videos, or IIFI.
• The Image List, Map, Thumbnail Size, etc. buttons maintain their size no matter the size of the title.
• Font size of headings reduced.

Image Listing

• If you are in a Custom View, the Camera dropdown for the Image Listing shows first the Selected Cameras from the sidebar, followed by all the other cameras.

11/16/2024

IIFI

• Zooming with the slider is centered on the middle of the screen instead of the top-left corner. Zooming with the mouse is centered on the cursor position.
• New button to Play images automatically and new dropdown to select the Playback FPS. Press space ␣ to play / pause.
• On narrow screens, the controls are rearranged to fit better.

10/27/2024

General UI

• Clicking the thumbnail size button now shows a slider for resizing the thumbnails.

IIFI

• New keyboard shortcuts: O toggles overlay and - / = change overlay transparency

10/19/2024

Image Listing

• New options added to get the listing for only one image each day at the specified time (end time) or for the whole 3h block containing that time each day.
• The Start and End are initially prefilled with the current time and then in subsequent requests they are preserved with the same values from the previous requests.
• The listing is not generated automatically (except in IIFI, see below); you can change Start and End and then click Generate Listing.

General UI

• On the pages for a site, the title lists the site information (name, lat/long, elevation), not just "Custom View".
• You can get to the page for a site by clicking on the site name from the overview pages. Also, when you create a Custom View and add cameras from only one site, that page is considered to be a site view and the title is updated.
• The text with the UI version is now in the top right, above the buttons, to make space for the longer title.
• Information was added regarding which sites have sensors. The weather info is now displayed only for sites that have sensors (if some sensors are broken, there could still be a 404 error on the website for now).
• As some sites have sensors but not cameras, the drop down list for sites displays only sites with cameras.
• Terminology was revised. Mobotix is a camera brand, and the references to Mobotix were replaced with the generic name Fixed FOV (field of view). In the drop down lists, it is shortened to FFOV.
• The camera dropdown in the sidebar has new options to Select all FFOV Color, Select all FFOV Monochrome, and Select all PTZ. These options appear only if the site has at least two cameras of that type.

IIFI

• Lat/long and elevation are also displayed in IIFI at the bottom after the camera name.
• The Download icon leads to the full size image.
• A new button called List is used for the Image Listing.
• If a Start time and End time are selected and you click on List, the Image Listing is prefilled with the Start and End from IIFI and the listing is generated automatically for that interval. Otherwise, the Start and End are preserved from the previous requests, and the listing is not generated automatic — you can change the Start and End times and then click Generate Listing.

Map

• A new button is added to Recenter the map on the currently selected cameras. This is different from Center on Target, which centers on the green pin.

10/13/2024

Image Listing

• Can now be invoked from the URL bar.
• Format: #list=siteId_camId&lst=YYYY-MM-DDTHH.mm&lend=YYYY-MM-DDTHH.mm

IIFI

• Shift + / arrows move by 1 hour on the timeline.
• Shift + / arrows move by 1 day on the timeline.
• You cannot go more that 90 days into the past (the current MTA limit).
• Help button inside IIFI auto-scrolls to the IIFI section.

10/06/2024

Image Listing

• New button in the upper right (next to Map).
• Generates list of filenames with images for a selected camera between two date/times.
• Shows each 3h slot as it is retrieved from the server (empty fill = in progress, green = successful, red = timeout/error).
• The listing can span several time slots and will output only the files between the start and end times.
• The output is a text file with the URL of each image, and can be downloaded when all of the time slots have been retrieved or timed out (10 seconds).
• If you already have a Custom View created, the camera dropdown shows only the Selected Cameras (from the sidebar).
• From the overview pages with all sites (All Fixed FOV Color, All PTZ, etc.), the camera dropdown shows all the cameras of the current type (only Fixed FOV color, only PTZ, etc.).

IIFI

• / arrows move by 10 minutes on the timeline.
• Help dialog can be accessed from within IIFI.
• Share URL also encodes the overlay image (if selected). If you want to share a single image (with overlay), click both Select start and Select end as the same image.
• New Download image list button available next to Go, which preselects camera and start and end times.

General UI

• UI version shown in the top right next to the Map button.
• Changelog added to help dialog.
• Help dialog is now narrower (75% of the viewport width instead of fullscreen).
• Site elevation is now displayed in both meters and feet.

9/22/2024

Map

• The map is now found above the camera view and can be toggled by the Map button in the top right. This setting is also preserved, just like the light/dark theme setting.
• The cameras can be filtered using the buttons on the left.
• Click on any marker to select/deselect that camera.
• PTZ cameras are indicated by red dots. If a site has multiple PTZs, the circle has a number inside it, and clicking it will select all the PTZs at that site.
• The other cameras are indicated with quarter-circle sectors, in concentric rings (red/yellow PTZ in the middle, then gray/green monochrome, then blue/cyan color). Experimental cameras are indicated with purple/magenta quarter-circle sectors.
• Fires larger than 5 acres are outlined in red and labeled. These also can be toggled using the filter buttons.
• If you click anywhere on the map that is not a camera, a green pin and gray circle appear. The pin can be dragged around and the size of the circle can be changed with the Range slider.
• For every site in range that can see the location of the pin, the line is light green if line of sight is uninterrupted. Otherwise, the line is dark green up to how far the camera can see, and red for the rest.
• Click on Center on target to center the map on the pin, or Clear map to remove the pin and lines.
• Click on Select cameras to select all the cameras that can see the pin. Cameras with uninterrupted line of sight appear first in the Selected Cameras sidebar.
• The map also has a fullscreen button, useful on mobile devices.

IIFI

• Real-time view is now integrated in IIFI. Click the LIVE button to see the camera in real-time.
• Clicking on an image in Real Time mode opens IIFI with live mode already enabled.
• Zoom and overlay are also available with live view.
• Note: You cannot activate live view if End is selected. You can't set the overlay baseline image while live is enabled (you can still change the transparency with the slider).
• Dragging the slider, using the Go button, or using keyboard shortcuts that change the time will exit live mode at one minute before now.
• You can Share IIFI in live view if the Start and End are not selected.

9/16/2024

Full resolution images

• Changed the icon on the Download button in the title above the image thumbnails to make it obvious that's how to get the full resolution images

Rounding GPS coordinates

• Due to regulations, we have to round the coordinates of most sites to 2 decimal places. This rounding is now done on the server side when generating the sites.js file that is used on the website.

IIFI

• Adjusted the Zoom speed when using the mouse wheel.

Weather

• If the view has cameras only from a site, the weather details are added by inserting as an iframe the sensor HTML from the main website. Some locations don't have weather measurements or the sensors are offline, which now produces a 404 error. We will be working on fixing that and redesigning the weather data completely.

Tutorial

• Made a tutorial video for IIFI: https://youtu.be/HQNBZaF47-o

8/31/2024

IIFI

• Zoom slider - click the leftmost "magnifying glass" icon to zoom the image.
• Image panning - use either scroll or drag.
• Zoom with mouse - hold alt/option key and scroll the mouse wheel.

8/27/2024

IIFI

• Usability on mobile - when the screen gets too narrow the controls rearrange to have the slider full width and above the other buttons.
• Black-screen bug (loading image) - if an image hasn't loaded the code will check every second until the image has loaded, then redraw the canvas.
• Black-screen bug (no image) - if there exists an image listing for a 3h slot but an image isn't found, it will say "No image!" instead of remaining black-screen.
• Current time indicator - it is now an actual <div> instead of being drawn on the canvas, so it will wrap on small screens. It also changes color based on loading status: yellow = waiting for image list, red = no image, dark green = loading image, bright green = image loaded (is shown on canvas).

8/21/2024

General UI

• Timezone support for Image tab & IIFI: the user specifies the local time and the system converts in PT. In contrast, the video tab is all in PT because the videos are generated in 3h intervals in PT.
• Preferences for thumbnail size and theme (light/dark) are saved into the browser so they persist across sessions/tabs.

IIFI

• The 3h range selector is replaced with an infinity slider that can be used to go anywhere. Just drag it left and right and then it snaps back to center, you drag some more, etc.
• Advanced keyboard support for quick navigation (such as Shift+Arrows to jump 20 min, see help button for more), also fixed focus so that the keys work right away.
• There is a "Go" button on the left that can be used to quickly jump to an arbitrary time (e.g., 2024-08-15T10:43).
• There are two buttons to the sides of the slider. Click on them to select the start and end of the range of interest (use the slider or the Go button to find the image you want and then click on start/end to store the current selection). After selecting both, the infinity slider becomes the standard video-like slider so that you can go through your range as before.
• To the right, there is an overlay button. You first use the slider to pick the image you want to use as baseline. Then you click the overlay button and the current image will be displayed over all other images as you move around. And you can choose your desired opacity with the vertical slider.
• If you find something cool to share, click the left-most button and a link to the selected range will be automatically copied to your clipboard.
• Example: Lenticular clouds