Triangulation in Random Refractive Distortions

Random refraction occurs in turbulence and through a wavy water-air interface. It creates distortion that changes in space, time and with viewpoint. Localizing objects in three dimensions (3D) despite this random distortion is important to some predators and also to submariners avoiding the salient use of periscopes. We take a multiview approach to this task. Refracted distortion statistics induce a probabilistic relation between any pixel location and a line of sight in space. Measurements of an object's random projection from multiple views and times lead to a likelihood function of the object's 3D location. The likelihood leads to estimates of the 3D location and its uncertainty. Furthermore, multiview images acquired simultaneously in a wide stereo baseline have uncorrelated distortions. This helps reduce the acquisition time needed for localization. The method is demonstrated in stereoscopic video sequences, both in a lab and a swimming pool.