Georeferenced underwater photogrammetry to map marine habitats and submerged artificial structures

Abstract

Over the past decade, underwater photogrammetry has been experiencing an increased interest due to the enhancement of camera performance and computing power. This study describes the test of two new methods to perform georeferenced underwater photogrammetry. The first one uses the coupling between photogrammetry by scuba diving and positioning with acoustic data from a multibeam echo sounder; the second one utilises direct positioning technology with a surface floating device (photogrammetric platform). When compared with one another, the platform had a higher mapping efficiency, while being limited by depth and underwater visibility. Georeferenced underwater photogrammetry is expected to have a wide range of applications in the field of marine habitats’ conservation such as seagrass meadows and the survey of submerged man‐made structures such as artificial reefs and port infrastructure.

3d Modelling in Temperate Waters: Building Rigs and Data Science to Support Glass Sponge Monitoring Efforts in Coastal British Columbia

“…Nevertheless, the usefulness and accuracy of SfM workflows are documented throughout bathymetric surveying (Abadie, Boissery, & Viala, 2018), marine archaeology (Beltrame & Costa, 2017;McCarthy & Benjamin, 2014;Skarlatos, Demestiha, & Kiparissi, 2012), ecological monitoring (Fukunaga, Burns, Craig, & Kosaki, 2019), morphometric analyses (Gutierrez-Heredia, Benzoni, Murphy, & Reynaud, 2016;Lavy et al, 2015;Napolitano, Chiariotti, & Tomasini, 2019), benthic mapping and classification (Bayley, Mogg, Koldewey, & Purvis, 2019;Leon, Roelfsema, Saunders, & Phinn, 2015;Pizarro, Friedman, Bryson, Williams, & Madin, 2017), and temporal change detection (Bennecke, Kwasnitschka, Metaxas, & Dullo, 2016;Piazza et al, 2018). The successful nature of these studies would suggest a significant opportunity to apply the SfM workflow to an ecological assessment of glass sponges and sponge reefs in the Northeast Pacific Ocean, particularly given the structural and ecological parallels that exist between glass sponge reefs and coral reefs.…”

A Cost-Effective Method to Reproduce the Morphology of the Nearshore and Intertidal Zone in Microtidal Environments

“…In the last decade, automated aerial and close-range digital photogrammetry has become a powerful and widely used tool for three-dimensional topographic modelling [15][16][17]. Abadie et al [18] used georeferenced photogrammetry to map marine habitats on submerged artefacts. Drap et al [19] suggested that photogrammetry in underwater contexts makes it possible to obtain a comprehensive survey of all visible parts of the site without impacting the studied objects, either natural or human-made.…”

Dry‐lab benchmarking of a structure from motion workflow designed to monitor marine benthos in three dimensions

“…SfM photogrammetry also eased the burden imposed by the awkward equipment and technical workflows of traditional photogrammetry, resulting in a surge of underwater SfM research touting SfM’s ability to capture and represent complex marine environments. Recent publications document the use of SfM for bathymetric surveying (Abadie et al., 2018), marine archaeology (Skarlatos et al., 2012; McCarthy and Benjamin, 2014; Beltrame and Costa, 2018), ecological monitoring (Fukunaga et al., 2019), morphometric analyses (Lavy et al., 2015; Gutierrez‐Heredia et al., 2016; Napolitano et al., 2019), benthic mapping and classification (Burns et al., 2015; Leon et al., 2015; Pizarro et al., 2017; Bayley et al., 2019) and monitoring temporal change (Bennecke et al., 2016; Piazza et al., 2018). For ecological analyses of marine benthos, SfM represents a non‐destructive, non‐invasive method of documentation that reduces the time spent in the field and enables objective interpretation (Piazza et al., 2018).…”