Quantitative photogrammetric analysis of digital underwater video imagery

This paper presents a photogrammetric model for digital underwater video imagery, which has been mostly applied to qualitative analysis in the marine environment. With this model, quantitative analysis of underwater images is possible, e.g., to locate positions, calculate sizes, and measure shapes of objects from image features. The underwater photogrammetric model is based on a three-dimensional optical ray tracing technique which rigorously models imaging systems with multilens configurations and multiple refractions. The calibration procedure with two independent phases has been proven to be efficient in simplifying the computation and improving the calibration accuracy. With the current imaging system configuration and photogrammetric model, an accuracy of 0.8 cm in lateral directions and 1.2 cm along the depth direction for objects located about 2-3 m from the camera system in the object space is attainable. A PC-based digital underwater photogrammetric prototype system has been developed to implement the underwater photogrammetric model