Cargando…

A Contrast-Guided Approach for the Enhancement of Low-Lighting Underwater Images

Underwater images are often acquired in sub-optimal lighting conditions, in particular at profound depths where the absence of natural light demands the use of artificial lighting. Low-lighting images impose a challenge for both manual and automated analysis, since regions of interest can have low v...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Porto Marques, Tunai, Branzan Albu, Alexandra, Hoeberechts, Maia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8321153/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34460645
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jimaging5100079
_version_ 1783730783586877440
author Porto Marques, Tunai
Branzan Albu, Alexandra
Hoeberechts, Maia
author_facet Porto Marques, Tunai
Branzan Albu, Alexandra
Hoeberechts, Maia
author_sort Porto Marques, Tunai
collection PubMed
description Underwater images are often acquired in sub-optimal lighting conditions, in particular at profound depths where the absence of natural light demands the use of artificial lighting. Low-lighting images impose a challenge for both manual and automated analysis, since regions of interest can have low visibility. A new framework capable of significantly enhancing these images is proposed in this article. The framework is based on a novel dehazing mechanism that considers local contrast information in the input images, and offers a solution to three common disadvantages of current single image dehazing methods: oversaturation of radiance, lack of scale-invariance and creation of halos. A novel low-lighting underwater image dataset, OceanDark, is introduced to assist in the development and evaluation of the proposed framework. Experimental results and a comparison with other underwater-specific image enhancement methods show that the proposed framework can be used for significantly improving the visibility in low-lighting underwater images of different scales, without creating undesired dehazing artifacts.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8321153
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-83211532021-08-26 A Contrast-Guided Approach for the Enhancement of Low-Lighting Underwater Images Porto Marques, Tunai Branzan Albu, Alexandra Hoeberechts, Maia J Imaging Article Underwater images are often acquired in sub-optimal lighting conditions, in particular at profound depths where the absence of natural light demands the use of artificial lighting. Low-lighting images impose a challenge for both manual and automated analysis, since regions of interest can have low visibility. A new framework capable of significantly enhancing these images is proposed in this article. The framework is based on a novel dehazing mechanism that considers local contrast information in the input images, and offers a solution to three common disadvantages of current single image dehazing methods: oversaturation of radiance, lack of scale-invariance and creation of halos. A novel low-lighting underwater image dataset, OceanDark, is introduced to assist in the development and evaluation of the proposed framework. Experimental results and a comparison with other underwater-specific image enhancement methods show that the proposed framework can be used for significantly improving the visibility in low-lighting underwater images of different scales, without creating undesired dehazing artifacts. MDPI 2019-10-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8321153/ /pubmed/34460645 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jimaging5100079 Text en © 2019 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ).
spellingShingle Article
Porto Marques, Tunai
Branzan Albu, Alexandra
Hoeberechts, Maia
A Contrast-Guided Approach for the Enhancement of Low-Lighting Underwater Images
title A Contrast-Guided Approach for the Enhancement of Low-Lighting Underwater Images
title_full A Contrast-Guided Approach for the Enhancement of Low-Lighting Underwater Images
title_fullStr A Contrast-Guided Approach for the Enhancement of Low-Lighting Underwater Images
title_full_unstemmed A Contrast-Guided Approach for the Enhancement of Low-Lighting Underwater Images
title_short A Contrast-Guided Approach for the Enhancement of Low-Lighting Underwater Images
title_sort contrast-guided approach for the enhancement of low-lighting underwater images
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8321153/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34460645
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jimaging5100079
work_keys_str_mv AT portomarquestunai acontrastguidedapproachfortheenhancementoflowlightingunderwaterimages
AT branzanalbualexandra acontrastguidedapproachfortheenhancementoflowlightingunderwaterimages
AT hoeberechtsmaia acontrastguidedapproachfortheenhancementoflowlightingunderwaterimages
AT portomarquestunai contrastguidedapproachfortheenhancementoflowlightingunderwaterimages
AT branzanalbualexandra contrastguidedapproachfortheenhancementoflowlightingunderwaterimages
AT hoeberechtsmaia contrastguidedapproachfortheenhancementoflowlightingunderwaterimages