Single-camera Three-dimensional Tracking of Underwater Objects

Abstract

A novel method for tracking underwater objects in three-dimensional space is proposed. Specifically, by a single camera this method has the ability to estimate the three-dimensional trajectory of the interest objects. Mathematically the general framework of this method is formulated as a probabilistic problem. In addition to the two- dimensional location in the image plane, the parameter respect to the distance between objects and the viewer (depth) is introduced into the motion state descriptor. The haze concentration in the image is utilized as the cue to estimate the depth. In order to match the objects existing in successive frames, color models of the reference and candidates are related by special consideration on the dynamic appearance variability caused by the underwater environments and the motion of objects. As a result, the trajectory exactly describing the three-dimensional motion trend of the interest objects is produced by the video filmed by a single camera. We present results over real underwater videos. Both single-object and multi-object tracking in three-dimensional space are achieved by using the proposed method. Keywords: