Underwater Image Restoration Based on Adaptive Color Compensation and Dual Transmission Estimation

Visibility restoration of an underwater image degraded by turbid water (due to scattering, absorption, and reflection) is a challenging task which requires careful design of computational imaging methods. The fundamental problems which limit image restoration are random diffusion and absorption of light in turbid water. Recently, the red-channel underwater image restoration method has emerged as an effective approach for visibility restoration under turbid water. However, this method fails to restore the visibility in a degraded image captured under non-uniform turbid water. The method fails due to its reliance on single transmission which cannot correctly express light propagation in an underwater environment. To overcome these problems, we propose a novel image restoration method based on adaptive color compensation and dual transmission estimation (ACDTE) to restore the visibility of underwater images degraded by non-uniform turbid water. The proposed method uses color-tone adaption to determine the hue of underwater images, and estimates global water light with quadtree decomposition. The method estimates dual transmission in the media through coefficient modification for R/G/B channels. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method can correct color deviations and has the advantage of visibility restoration of underwater images. The proposed method can be used for marine exploration, underwater rescue, and environmental monitoring.