SPLASH-SegFormer Pipeline: A Transformer-Based Approach for High-Resolution and Low-Cost Laser Scanner Seafloor Mapping

High-resolution seafloor mapping continues to be challenging, primarily due to the high costs and complexity of traditional sensors. Laser scanners offer a more affordable alternative, using a monocular camera and a laser stripe. While this method provides high-resolution 3D reconstructions, it is s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE robotics and automation letters Vol. 10; no. 8; pp. 7995 - 8002
Main Authors: Fuentes-Guinez, Javiera, Troni, Giancarlo, Lobel, Hans
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.08.2025
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects:
Accuracy
Cameras
High resolution
Image reconstruction
Image segmentation
Laser modes
Lasers
Lighting
Mapping
Marine robotics
object detection
Ocean floor
Pipelines
Real time
Scanners
Sea floor
segmentation and categorization
Sensors
Three dimensional models
Three-dimensional displays
Transformers
Underwater
ISSN:2377-3766, 2377-3766
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:High-resolution seafloor mapping continues to be challenging, primarily due to the high costs and complexity of traditional sensors. Laser scanners offer a more affordable alternative, using a monocular camera and a laser stripe. While this method provides high-resolution 3D reconstructions, it is sensitive to underwater lighting and surface reflections. This work introduces SPLASH-SegFormer Pipeline, a novel method that leverages attention mechanisms and multi-level feature integration to enhance laser stripe segmentation in underwater environments, marking, to the best of our knowledge, the first application of a transformer-based architecture for this task. The proposed method is trained and evaluated using both simulated and field experimental data collected in a test tank and during multiple sea expeditions, allowing it to learn from diverse and challenging environments. A complete pipeline is constructed around this network, enabling the processing of images from a camera to a 3D point cloud reconstruction quickly and accurately. The results demonstrate that SPLASH-SegFormer significantly enhances segmentation robustness and accuracy while maintaining a reasonable speed. It outperforms traditional underwater thresholding by over 64 points in mIoU and surpasses all evaluated methods, achieving 6.6 points higher mIoU than Stripe Segmentor while running over 65% faster. This speed enhances efficiency and makes it ideal for real-time onboard applications, enabling millimeter-level underwater 3D reconstruction and high-resolution seafloor mapping using smaller, cost-effective sensors.
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ISSN:2377-3766
2377-3766
DOI:10.1109/LRA.2025.3577520