Weibull Tone Mapping (WTM) for the enhancement of underwater imagery

Game, Chloe Amanda ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0507-0054, Thompson, Michael Barry and Finlayson, Graham David (2023) Weibull Tone Mapping (WTM) for the enhancement of underwater imagery. Sensors, 23 (7). ISSN 1424-8220

[thumbnail of sensors-23-03533]
Preview
PDF (sensors-23-03533) - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

Domain experts prefer interactive and targeted control-point tone mapping operations (TMOs) to enhance underwater image quality and feature visibility; though this comes at the expense of time and training. In this paper, we provide end-users with a simpler and faster interactive tone-mapping approach. This is built upon Weibull Tone Mapping (WTM) theory; introduced in previous work as a preferred tool to describe and improve domain expert TMOs. We allow end-users to easily shape brightness distributions according to the Weibull distribution, using two parameter sliders which modify the distribution peak and spread. Our experiments showed that 10 domain experts found the two-slider Weibull manipulation sufficed to make a desired adjustment in >80% of images in a large dataset. For the remaining ∼20%, observers opted for a control-point TMO which can, broadly, encompass many global tone mapping algorithms. Importantly, 91% of these control-point TMOs can actually be visually well-approximated by our Weibull slider manipulation, despite users not identifying slider parameters themselves. Our work stresses the benefit of the Weibull distribution and significance of image purpose in underwater image enhancement.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding: This work was supported by NERC and EPSRC grants: NE/N012070/1 and EP/S028730/1, respectively. Data Availability Statement: Commercial restrictions apply to the availability of these image data.
Uncontrolled Keywords: underwater image enhancement,tone mapping,histogram specification,weibull distribution,analytical chemistry,information systems,instrumentation,atomic and molecular physics, and optics,electrical and electronic engineering,biochemistry,sdg 14 - life below water ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1600/1602
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Computing Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Colour and Imaging Lab
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 29 Mar 2023 11:31
Last Modified: 27 Nov 2023 03:04
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/91704
DOI: 10.3390/s23073533

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item