Review of underwater image restoration algorithms

Abstract

Underwater images are susceptible to various distortions compared to images taken on land, due to the nature of the water environment. These images often suffer from diffraction, polarisation, absorption, scattering, colour loss and attenuation of light. Each part of the ocean will have its own sources of distortions, due to flickers caused by direct sunlight, marine snow, the fluorescence of biological objects, the presence of macroscopical organisms, loss of stability in divers, loss of light, artificial lighting and floating dust particles present in the water. There are numerous techniques and algorithms that may be used to restore these underwater images. This study reviews different algorithms and methods, developed in the past two decades, to give clearer ideas on the techniques present in the image restoration process, specifically for underwater images.