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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.

The immutable HDR JPG/MP4 raw mirror is copied to both GWS and object storage. The catalog, daily videos, and hourly thumbnails are also archived as products after settling. The local pixel Zarr is mutable, reproducible, and excluded from both archives; it is never raw-retention evidence.

Detailed product documentation: