Turbidity Underwater Image Restoration Using Spectral Properties and Light Compensation

Absorption, scattering, and color distortion are three major issues in underwater optical imaging. Light rays traveling through water are scattered and absorbed according to their wavelength. Scattering is caused by large suspended particles that degrade underwater optical images. Color distortion o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEICE Transactions on Information and Systems Vol. E99.D; no. 1; pp. 219 - 227
Main Authors LU, Huimin, LI, Yujie, NAKASHIMA, Shota, SERIKAWA, Seiichi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers 01.01.2016
Subjects
guided filter
underwater image enhancement
wavelength compensation
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Summary:Absorption, scattering, and color distortion are three major issues in underwater optical imaging. Light rays traveling through water are scattered and absorbed according to their wavelength. Scattering is caused by large suspended particles that degrade underwater optical images. Color distortion occurs because different wavelengths are attenuated to different degrees in water; consequently, images of ambient underwater environments are dominated by a bluish tone. In the present paper, we propose a novel underwater imaging model that compensates for the attenuation discrepancy along the propagation path. In addition, we develop a fast weighted guided normalized convolution domain filtering algorithm for enhancing underwater optical images. The enhanced images are characterized by a reduced noise level, better exposure in dark regions, and improved global contrast, by which the finest details and edges are enhanced significantly.
ISSN:0916-8532
1745-1361
DOI:10.1587/transinf.2014EDP7405