College of Science

California Undersea Imagery Archive

How to Use the Request Form

1. Select Imagery of Interest

The Imagery Catalog and CUIA Interactive Map are designed to help in the selection process. Due to the large volume of media housed at the Archive, specific information is necessary to create copies or prepare media for a viewing appointment. Requests can be made by sub-region as listed on the Imagery Catalog page (i.e. Bodega Head, Farallon Islands, Catalina), by original project (i.e. North Central Coast MPA Baseline Characterization and Monitoring of Mid-depth Rock and Soft Bottom Ecosystems), or more specifically by individual transect or dive. Collection tool, predominant habitat, date collected, video only, or stills only may also be specified.

2. Select Media Type

Video imagery may be requested in either compressed digital files on DVD or external drive, or for special requests its original tape format. HD stills are available by region, however those listed are selected sample images that do not encompass the entire image collection available. Imagery may be either copied to an external drive (details below) or delivered electronically through a shared Google Drive download folder.

3. Ship Blank Copy Media OR Schedule Appointment

After submitting a competed Request Form and receiving the approval email, if you require compressed digital forms of video (external drive or DVD), please ship the storage media to:

CSUMB Ryan Ranch Annex, Attn. CUIA, 8 Upper Ragsdale Road, Monterey, CA 93940

We will copy the requested imagery to either the DVDs or drive and ship them back.

Scheduling a Copying or Viewing Appointment

Due to the time consuming nature of copying tapes, we may require requests of more than 20 hours of tape-based video be copied by the requester at our Monterey location. If this is the case, the CUIA archivist (cuia@csumb.edu) will contact you after receiving the Request Form to schedule a time. Note that copying tape takes an equal amount of time to its length. We will provide the equipment necessary to view the tape and copy them, but we may require that you bring your own archival media.

If you lack the equipment necessary to view tape-based imagery but require it for your work, we have a viewing station available at the Archive that you may use to conduct your video observations. If you require use of the video workstation, please indicate so on the request form and we'll arrange the viewing appointments.