Underwater Depth Estimation and Image Restoration Based on Single Images

• Published in: IEEE computer graphics and applications Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 24 - 35
• Main Authors: Drews, Paulo L.J., Nascimento, Erickson R., Botelho, Silvia S.C., Montenegro Campos, Mario Fernando
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.03.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Absorption; Attenuation; Backscattering; computer graphics; Dark Channel Prior; Image acquisition; Image color analysis; Image quality; Image restoration; Scattering; Underwater; Underwater Dark Channel Prior; underwater images; Visual; Visual computing
• ISSN: 0272-1716; 1558-1756; 1558-1756
• DOI: 10.1109/MCG.2016.26

In underwater environments, the scattering and absorption phenomena affect the propagation of light, degrading the quality of captured images. In this work, the authors present a method based on a physical model of light propagation that takes into account the most significant effects to image degradation: absorption, scattering, and backscattering. The proposed method uses statistical priors to restore the visual quality of the images acquired in typical underwater scenarios.