Abstract—3D visual mapping of the seafloor has found applications
ranging from environment monitoring and survey of
marine minerals to underwater archeology and inspection of
modern man-made structures. However, the attenuation of light
is significantly more pronounced in water than in air or in
space, and so in order to obtain underwater images in color,
it is typically necessary to be within 2 to 3m of the seafloor. In
addition to the high risk of collision when operating underwater
vehicles at such low altitudes, the limited area of the seafloor
covered in each image means large area surveys require a huge
investment of time. In this research, we aim to increase the
efficiency of mapping large areas of the seafloor by developing an
underwater imaging system that can take color images at ranges
of up to 13 m, so that each image can cover a larger area, together
with the necessary algorithms to automatically process the data it
obtains. The system was deployed to map artificial hydrothermal
vents in Iheya North Knoll using the ROV Hyper-Dolphin in
October 2012. In this paper, we describe the instrument and
the methods used to process the data it obtains, and present
wide area 3D reconstructions of habitats surrounding artificial
hydrothermal vents.