I really see this as the start
of the Artificial Intelligence boom
in marine science.
My name is Derya Akkaynak.
And I am an oceanographer and engineer
I specialize in problems of
imaging and vision underwater.
I am now in the Lembeh strait in Indonesia
to test a new algorithm that I developed called
Sea-thru, which takes an underwater image
and removes the water from it, and it looks
just like it would as if you took the photo
on land.
Underwater images typically have
an overwhelming color cast, green or blue,
depending on where you took them.
Objects in far distances are occluded by
a layer of what we call backscatter, but think
of it as a layer of haze.
So, the further you are from the objects in
the scene the more haze you get in the scene.
Because light as it travels through
the water, gets absorbed and scattered, colors fade away.
That's where underwater images look so dull
and distorted all the time.
[Music up]
I'm diving with a regular consumer
camera, and I carry a color chart with me.
Every time I see a reef with large 3D structure,
I place my color chart at the base of the
reef, and then I swim away about 15 meters.
Then I start swimming towards the reef, towards
the color chart, and photograph it from slightly
different angles until I get to the reef and
then I swim over the reef, photograph the
top of the reef, all sides.
Once I have the distance information
all I do is I take the raw photos back to
my computer, and I apply the method that uses
a certain mathematical formula, goes through
each pixel and calculates what the degradation should be and removes it.
Currently, in the field of underwater
imaging and marine science, we are at a standstill
So if you're a biologist, for example,
studying corals on the seafloor, and you made
a survey of a reef, and you'd like to see
what species or what composition of animals
are found on the seafloor, for the most part,
you have to do that manually, because the
water takes away so much that you can't see the true color
of the species you're looking for.
This method is not photoshopping
an image.
It's not enhancing or pumping up the colors
in an image.
It's a physically accurate correction, rather
than a visually pleasing modification.
I imagine in addition to scientists,
recreational divers or underwater photographers
would also be very interested in using this
method, because finally from their images,
they can remove all the degrading components
and see the vivid colors of a scene just the
way they would have as if that scene was on
land.
[credits]
