• 한국해양공학회지
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• 제34권6호
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• pp.442-453
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• 2020

Underwater color images suffer from low visibility and color cast effects caused by light attenuation by water and floating particles. This study applied single image enhancement techniques to enhance the quality of underwater images and compared their performance with real underwater images taken in Korean waters. Dark channel prior (DCP), gradient transform, image fusion, and generative adversarial networks (GAN), such as cycleGAN and underwater GAN (UGAN), were considered for single image enhancement. Their performance was evaluated in terms of underwater image quality measure, underwater color image quality evaluation, gray-world assumption, and blur metric. The DCP saturated the underwater images to a specific greenish or bluish color tone and reduced the brightness of the background signal. The gradient transform method with two transmission maps were sensitive to the light source and highlighted the region exposed to light. Although image fusion enabled reasonable color correction, the object details were lost due to the last fusion step. CycleGAN corrected overall color tone relatively well but generated artifacts in the background. UGAN showed good visual quality and obtained the highest scores against all figures of merit (FOMs) by compensating for the colors and visibility compared to the other single enhancement methods.

• 한국해양공학회지
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• 제36권1호
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• pp.32-40
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• 2022

Underwater optical images face various limitations that degrade the image quality compared with optical images taken in our atmosphere. Attenuation according to the wavelength of light and reflection by very small floating objects cause low contrast, blurry clarity, and color degradation in underwater images. We constructed an image data of the Korean sea and enhanced it by learning the characteristics of underwater images using the deep learning techniques of CycleGAN (cycle-consistent adversarial network), UGAN (underwater GAN), FUnIE-GAN (fast underwater image enhancement GAN). In addition, the underwater optical image was enhanced using the image processing technique of Image Fusion. For a quantitative performance comparison, UIQM (underwater image quality measure), which evaluates the performance of the enhancement in terms of colorfulness, sharpness, and contrast, and UCIQE (underwater color image quality evaluation), which evaluates the performance in terms of chroma, luminance, and saturation were calculated. For 100 underwater images taken in Korean seas, the average UIQMs of CycleGAN, UGAN, and FUnIE-GAN were 3.91, 3.42, and 2.66, respectively, and the average UCIQEs were measured to be 29.9, 26.77, and 22.88, respectively. The average UIQM and UCIQE of Image Fusion were 3.63 and 23.59, respectively. CycleGAN and UGAN qualitatively and quantitatively improved the image quality in various underwater environments, and FUnIE-GAN had performance differences depending on the underwater environment. Image Fusion showed good performance in terms of color correction and sharpness enhancement. It is expected that this method can be used for monitoring underwater works and the autonomous operation of unmanned vehicles by improving the visibility of underwater situations more accurately.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.837-856
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• 2016

Underwater image enhancement has received considerable attention in last decades, due to the nature of poor visibility and low contrast of underwater images. In this paper, we propose a new automatic underwater image enhancement algorithm, which combines nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) domain enhancement techniques with the mechanism of the human visual system (HVS). We apply the multiscale retinex algorithm based on the HVS into NSCT domain in order to eliminate the non-uniform illumination, and adopt the threshold denoising technique to suppress underwater noise. Our proposed algorithm incorporates the luminance masking and contrast masking characteristics of the HVS into NSCT domain to yield the new HVS-based NSCT. Moreover, we define two nonlinear mapping functions. The first one is used to manipulate the HVS-based NSCT contrast coefficients to enhance the edges. The second one is a gain function which modifies the lowpass subband coefficients to adjust the global dynamic range. As a result, our algorithm can achieve contrast enhancement, image denoising and edge sharpening automatically and simultaneously. Experimental results illustrate that our proposed algorithm has better enhancement performance than state-of-the-art algorithms both in subjective evaluation and quantitative assessment. In addition, our algorithm can automatically achieve underwater image enhancement without any parameter tuning.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.544-564
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• 2022

Underwater images often suffer from color distortion, blurring and low contrast, which is caused by the propagation of light in the underwater environment being affected by the two processes: absorption and scattering. To cope with the poor quality of underwater images, this paper proposes a multiscale fusion underwater image enhancement method based on channel attention mechanism and local binary pattern (LBP). The network consists of three modules: feature aggregation, image reconstruction and LBP enhancement. The feature aggregation module aggregates feature information at different scales of the image, and the image reconstruction module restores the output features to high-quality underwater images. The network also introduces channel attention mechanism to make the network pay more attention to the channels containing important information. The detail information is protected by real-time superposition with feature information. Experimental results demonstrate that the method in this paper produces results with correct colors and complete details, and outperforms existing methods in quantitative metrics.

• 반도체디스플레이기술학회지
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.23-27
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• 2024

Underwater images are typically degraded due to color distortion, light absorption, scattering, and noise from artificial light sources. Restoration of these images is an essential task in many underwater applications. In this paper, we propose a two-phase deep learning-based method, Underwater Deep Curve Estimation (UWDCE), designed to effectively enhance the quality of underwater images. The first phase involves a white balancing and color correction technique to compensate for color imbalances. The second phase introduces a novel deep learning model, UWDCE, to learn the mapping between the color-corrected image and its best-fitting curve parameter maps. The model operates iteratively, applying light-enhancement curves to achieve better contrast and maintain pixel values within a normalized range. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, producing higher-quality images compared to state-of-the-art methods.

• 한국전자통신학회논문지
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• 제10권5호
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• pp.645-652
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• 2015

양식장 또는 바다와 같은 수중은 물방울과 다양한 부유물에 의하여 탁도가 높아지므로, 깊이에 따라 빛의 감쇠가 발생하고 부유물에 의한 빛의 산란 효과도 발생한다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 수중 환경에서 획득한 수중 영상의 가시성을 개선하기 위하여, dark channel prior 개념을 이용한 안개 제거 방법과 학습된 색상 변환 모델을 이용하여 색을 복원하는 수중 영상의 가시성 개선 방법을 제안하였다. 색상 변환 모델을 학습하기 위하여 여수와 포항에서 획득한 수중 패턴 영상을 사용하였으며, 제안 방법의 제안된 방법의 성능을 측정하기 위하여 여수, 거문도, 필리핀 등에서 수집한 수중 영상을 사용하여 가시성 개선 실험을 수행하였다. 실험 결과 제안 방법이 다양한 장소에서 수집된 수중 영상의 가시성을 개선시킴을 확인하였다.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• 제6권4호
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• pp.840-866
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• 2014

Visibility in underwater images is usually poor because of the attenuation of light in the water that causes low contrast and color variation. In this paper, a new approach for underwater image quality improvement is presented. The proposed method aims to improve underwater image contrast, increase image details, and reduce noise by applying a new method of using contrast stretching to produce two different images with different contrasts. The proposed method integrates the modification of the image histogram in two main color models, RGB and HSV. The histograms of the color channel in the RGB color model are modified and remapped to follow the Rayleigh distribution within certain ranges. The image is then converted to the HSV color model, and the S and V components are modified within a certain limit. Qualitative and quantitative analyses indicate that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods in terms of contrast, details, and noise reduction. The image color also shows much improvement.

• 보존과학회지
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• 제38권1호
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• pp.14-32
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• 2022

Underwater photographing and image recording are essential for pre-excavation survey and during excavation in underwater archaeology. Unlike photographing on land, all underwater images suffer various quality degradations such as shape distortions, color shift, blur, low contrast, high noise levels and so on. Outcome is very often heavily photographing equipment and photographer dependent. Excavation schedule, weather conditions, and water conditions can put burdens on divers. Usable images are very limited compared to the efforts. In underwater archaeological study in very turbid water such as in the Yellow Sea (between mainland China and the Korean peninsula), underwater photographing is very challenging. In this study, off-site image distortion and color compensation techniques using an image processing/analysis software is investigated as an alternative image quality enhancement method. As sample images, photographs taken during the excavation of 800-year-old Taean Mado Shipwrecks in the Yellow Sea in 2008-2010 were mainly used. Significant enhancement in distortion and color compensation of archived images were obtained by simple post image processing using image processing/analysis software (PicMan) customized for given view ports, lenses and cameras with and without optical axis offsets. Post image processing is found to be very effective in distortion and color compensation of both recent and archived images from various photographing equipment models and configurations. Merits and demerit of in-situ, distortion and color compensated photographing with sophisticated equipment and conventional photographing equipment, which requires post image processing, are compared.

• 로봇학회논문지
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• 제19권2호
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• pp.188-195
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• 2024

This paper proposes a photorealistic real-time dense 3D mapping system that utilizes a neural network-based image enhancement method and mesh-based map representation. Due to the characteristics of the underwater environment, where problems such as hazing and low contrast occur, it is hard to apply conventional simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) methods. At the same time, the behavior of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is computationally constrained. In this paper, we utilize a neural network-based image enhancement method to improve pose estimation and mapping quality and apply a sliding window-based mesh expansion method to enable lightweight, fast, and photorealistic mapping. To validate our results, we utilize real-world and indoor synthetic datasets. We performed qualitative validation with the real-world dataset and quantitative validation by modeling images from the indoor synthetic dataset as underwater scenes.

• 방송공학회논문지
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.684-694
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• 2012

수중 환경에서 물과 부유물에 의한 빛의 감쇄와 산란은 수중 영상의 색상을 열화시키고 가시성을 저하시키는 주요 원인이 된다. 이러한 수중 산란광은 피사체와의 거리의 함수로 표현되므로 깊이 정보는 빛의 전달률을 계산하기 위한 중요한 정보를 제공한다. 본 논문에서는 깊이 영상을 이용하여 전달률을 측정하고 이를 기반으로 영상의 각 화소에 존재하는 산란에 의한 열화값을 제거함으로써 수중 스테레오 영상의 가시성을 개선하는 방법을 제안한다. 제안하는 방법은 제거해야 하는 열화값이 영상의 화소값 보다 크지 않도록 보정하여 가사성 개선 시 나타날 수 있는 부분적인 영상 왜곡을 방지한다. 또한 수중 스테레오 영상의 심각한 문제점 중의 하나인 색상 불균형을 효과적으로 보정하여 가시성 개선 후 좌, 우 영상의 동일성을 유지한다. 실험 결과는 다양한 환경의 수중 영상에 대하여 제안하는 가시성 개선 후 색대비가 영상에 따라 5%에서 14%이상 향상되었음을 보여준다.