Preliminary results in using a joint contrast enhancement and turbulence mitigation method for underwater optical imaging

In this article, the author investigates the method of turbulence mitigation and contrast enhancement originally designed for atmospheric imaging for the purpose of improving underwater optical image sequences so operators can accomplish their task of object inspections more effectively by increasing the local contrast, reducing noise, mitigate marine snow, and increasing the sharpness. With video obtained in the San Diego bay, we present subjective and objective comparisons that show our proposed method is effective in improving perceptual quality and ultimately making the object inspection tasks easier for the operator.