Polarization-Driven Solution for Mitigating Scattering and Uneven Illumination in Underwater Imagery

This article introduces a polarization-driven solution (PDS) to enhance the contrast of underwater imagery degraded by light scattering and uneven illumination. Images taken in underwater environments suffer from reduced contrast due to the combined effects of light scattering and nonuniform illumination. We present an underwater joint degradation model (UJDM) that effectively describes the compounded impacts of scattering and uneven illumination. By exploiting the polarization distinctions between objects and scattered light, we mitigate the deleterious effects of light scattering. Additionally, we leverage the polarization information to persist across changes in illumination, enhancing contrast and detail, especially in darker image regions. By building upon this foundation, our proposed underwater image restoration technique synergistically combines descattering with low-light image enhancement. We establish a benchmark database comprising both simulated and authentic underwater polarization images. Experiment results demonstrate that our proposed technique outperforms state-of-the-art underwater image contrast enhancement algorithms, validated through both subjective assessments and objective evaluation metrics. The source code and the datasets are available at https://github.com/polwork/PDS.