Underwater cameras play a key role in the inspection of submarine structures (offshore foundation structures, pipelines, etc.), in the detection of seabed munitions, or in marine research. Carried by divers or mounted on submarine vehicles, these cameras deliver key information for controlling missions or documentation purposes. Due to the special optical properties of water, the quality of underwater images is usually rather bad, which affects the evaluation by man or even by the automated algorithms of machine vision.

Fraunhofer IGD offers applied research and directly usable technologies for the processing of underwater images and videos, covering a wide range from quality improvement via object recognition and tracking all the way to surveying and 3D reconstruction.