An Underwater Image Fast Mosaic Approach Based On SURF

Underwater images generally have problems of blur, low-contrast, small field of view and so on, which seriously affect the application of optical vision in underwater environments.Underwater image mosaic technology,however,is an effective way to solve these problems.This paper proposed an underwater image fast mosaic approach, which was then applied to underwater panoramic image mosaic to obtain a high-quality underwater panorama with large field of view, high resolution and smooth transition. Firstly, an underwater image preprocessing method was implemented to solve the problems of blur, low-contrast and serious noise, etc., in underwater images. Then, an interesting point detection algorithm which named SURF was applied to underwater image registration. At the stage of precise matching of interesting points, a matching algorithm based on the dominant orientation was proposed and combined with RANSAC algorithm to carry out precise matching. Finally,the gradated in-and-out amalgamation algorithm was adopted to accomplish the fusion of underwater images, completing the underwater images mosaic eventually. After the mosaic of two underwater images is carried out, multiple underwater images were processed to complete an underwater panoramic image mosaic. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed underwater image preprocessing method can greatly improve the quality of underwater images and prepares for subsequent images mosaic. The precise matching method of interesting points combined with the presented matching algorithm based on the dominant orientation with the RANSAC algorithm can effectively improve the speed of precise matching while the mismatch rate is higher for the coarse matching points. The gradated in-and-out amalgamation algorithm can effectively weaken or eliminate stitching seams and improve the quality of image mosaic. The panoramic image mosaic method used in this paper can effectively solve the error accumulation problem in traditional panoramic image mosaic method and improve the mosaic accuracy and viewing quality of underwater panoramas..