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WXcam

WXcam is the camera-oriented instrument in the dashboard. It uses a hybrid product model rather than a purely numeric time-series Zarr.

Interactive behavior

The interactive tab is video-driven:

  • Today (latest) uses latest.mp4
  • historical days use one stitched MP4 per UTC day
  • the browser keeps Latest, Previous, and Next visible as first-class camera controls
  • the player shows freshness metadata such as Updated X min ago and last clip time
  • the player is intentionally not auto-refreshed while you are actively browsing WXcam
  • current-day stitched videos are refreshed ahead of the slower historical backfill work so the live browser stays useful during archive catch-up

The MP4 player uses URLs under /wxcam-media/... instead of embedding video bytes in the Panel websocket payload. That keeps large stitched videos out of the Bokeh document and lets browsers use normal HTTP byte-range requests for playback and seeking.

Science quicklooks

The WXcam science view is image-driven:

  • each UTC hour uses the HDR JPG closest to :30
  • the quicklook page shows a 3 x 8 hourly grid
  • tiles only appear when an image exists for that hour
  • the page header and availability bar explicitly label the grid as UTC, and selected stills show their UTC date/time in the viewer title
  • long raw backfills do not pause the catalog or product refresh cycle; fresh in-flight files are deferred until they settle

Housekeeping quicklooks

WXcam also has a dedicated housekeeping product:

  • HK_WXcam

This focuses on catalog and coverage diagnostics rather than the primary image grid.

Backing products

  • raw mirror: /project/aurora/raw/wxcam
  • catalog: /data/aurora/products/wxcam/wxcam_catalog.sqlite
  • daily videos: /data/aurora/products/wxcam/daily_videos
  • hourly thumbnails: /data/aurora/products/wxcam/hourly_thumbnails
  • image Zarr: /data/aurora/products/wxcam/wxcam.zarr

The deployed mirror retains HDR JPG and MP4 files for both FISH and PANO. AUTO/LONG/SHORT files remain on the camera host and are not cataloged, Zarr-appended, or archived from this VM.

Detailed product documentation: