Optimizing Temporal Stability in Underwater Video Tone Mapping

In this paper, we present an approach for temporal stabilization of depth-based underwater image tone mapping methods for application to monocular RGB video. Typically, the goal is to improve the colors of focused objects, while leaving more distant regions nearly unchanged, to preserve the underwater look-and-feel of the overall image. To do this, many methods rely on estimated depth to control the recolorization process, i.e., to enhance colors (reduce blue tint) only for objects close to the camera. However, while single-view depth estimation is usually consistent within a frame, it often suffers from inconsistencies across sequential frames, resulting in color fluctuations during tone mapping. We propose a simple yet effective inter-frame stabilization of the computed depth maps to achieve stable tone mapping results. The evaluation of eight test sequences shows the effectiveness in a wide range of underwater scenarios.