A Multicriteria Evaluation of Single Underwater Image Improvement Algorithms

Abstract

Enhancement and restoration algorithms are widely used in the exploration of coral reefs for improving underwater images. However, by selecting an improvement algorithm based on image quality metrics, image processing key factors such as the execution time are not considered. In response to this issue, herein is presented a novel method built on multicriteria decision analysis that evaluates the processing time and feature point increase with respect to the original image. To set the Decision Matrix (DM), both the processing time and keypoint increase criteria of the evaluated algorithms are normalized. The criteria weights in the DM are set in accordance with the application, and the quantitative metric used to select the best alternative is the highest Weighted Sum Method (WsuM) score. In this work, the DM of six scenarios is shown, since the setting of weights could completely change the decision. For this research’s target application of generating underwater photomosaics, the Dark Channel Prior (DCP) algorithm emerged as the most suitable under a weighting scheme of 75% for processing time and 25% for keypoint increase. This proposal represents a solution for evaluating improvement algorithms in applications where computational efficiency is critical.

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