Polarimetric Calculation Method of Global Pixel for Underwater Image Restoration

Abstract

The estimation of the degree of polarization of backscattered light and target light is the key to realize scattering removal in underwater polarimetric imaging. In this paper, a new polarization scattering removal method is proposed by realizing polarimetric calculation of the target light with each pixel of the scene automatically, which is conducive to the restoration of the details of underwater scene. The global model of pixel level is established by utilizing the gradient prior of the polarization information of the total radiance image. Different from the previous study that the degree of polarization of the target light is a constant, the global calculation method can solve the global variable image of the degree of polarization of the target light and it is used for reconstruction experiments of underwater real-world scene to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm. The experimental results demonstrate that the global pixel calculation method has obvious effect on image detail recovery of the underwater scene to realize the clear underwater vision. The influence of the backscattered light on underwater imaging is well suppressed and image contrast has been significantly improved, which provides a new method for enhancing performance of underwater polarimetric imaging with better vision.

Keywords

• Polarimetric imaging
• underwater image restoration
• polarimetric calculation of global pixel
• the degree of polarization of the target