A simple and comprehensive model for underwater image restoration

Abstract

Light is absorbed and scattered by water when propagating underwater. Image quality of underwater objects is extremely contaminated and degenerated by the factors of backscatter and attenuation. So underwater images should be restored to recover the useful information. In this paper, we come up with a simple and comprehensive model by combining with the Jaffe-McGlamery computer model and the spread characteristic of the underwater light, which has fewer parameters and dose not need the experiential knowledge compared with the conventional methods. An automatic process is utilized to obtain the parameters of the model. Lots of images taken underwater are restored by the method of image restoration model proposed in this paper and the results are satisfiable.