# Image-Based Relocalization and Alignment for Long-Term Monitoring of Dynamic Underwater Environments

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04096 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04096/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 30 of its 52 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 30)

- [SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00714/) (2024)
- [SuperGlue: Learning Feature Matching with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.11763/) (2019)
- [SuperPoint: Self-Supervised Interest Point Detection and Description](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.07629/) (2017)
- [NetVLAD: CNN architecture for weakly supervised place recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.07247/) (2015)
- [LightGlue: Local Feature Matching at Light Speed](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.13643/) (2023)
- [From Coarse to Fine: Robust Hierarchical Localization at Large Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03506/) (2018)
- [Patch-NetVLAD: Multi-Scale Fusion of Locally-Global Descriptors for Place Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01486/) (2021)
- [Rethinking Visual Geo-localization for Large-Scale Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02287/) (2022)
- [AnyLoc: Towards Universal Visual Place Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00688/) (2023)
- [MixVPR: Feature Mixing for Visual Place Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.02190/) (2023)
- [Optimal Transport Aggregation for Visual Place Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15937/) (2023)
- [EigenPlaces: Training Viewpoint Robust Models for Visual Place Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10832/) (2023)
- [VPR-Bench: An Open-Source Visual Place Recognition Evaluation Framework with Quantifiable Viewpoint and Appearance Change](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.08135/) (2020)
- [Deep Visual Geo-localization Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.03444/) (2022)
- [Where is your place, Visual Place Recognition?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.06443/) (2021)
- [On the Limits of Pseudo Ground Truth in Visual Camera Re-localisation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.00524/) (2021)
- [CricaVPR: Cross-image Correlation-aware Representation Learning for Visual Place Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.19231/) (2024)
- [MegaLoc: One Retrieval to Place Them All](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17237/) (2025)
- [WaterNeRF: Neural Radiance Fields for Underwater Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.13091/) (2022)
- [AQUALOC: An Underwater Dataset for Visual-Inertial-Pressure Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.14532/) (2019)
- [Real-Time Dense 3D Mapping of Underwater Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02704/) (2023)
- [VPAIR -- Aerial Visual Place Recognition and Localization in Large-scale Outdoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11567/) (2022)
- [High Definition, Inexpensive, Underwater Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05640/) (2022)
- [Scalable Semantic 3D Mapping of Coral Reefs with Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.12804/) (2023)
- [Image Labels Are All You Need for Coarse Seagrass Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.00973/) (2023)
- [Eiffel Tower: A Deep-Sea Underwater Dataset for Long-Term Visual Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05301/) (2023)
- [TURTLMap: Real-time Localization and Dense Mapping of Low-texture Underwater Environments with a Low-cost Unmanned Underwater Vehicle](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01569/) (2024)
- [3D Water Quality Mapping using Invariant Extended Kalman Filtering for Underwater Robot Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11578/) (2024)
- [Visual Place Recognition with Low-Resolution Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05776/) (2023)
- [Online Refractive Camera Model Calibration in Visual Inertial Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12074/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [AI-Driven Marine Robotics: Emerging Trends in Underwater Perception and Ecosystem Monitoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01878/) (2025)
- [Long-Term Multi-Session 3D Reconstruction Under Substantial Appearance Change](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.20584/) (2026)
- [Long-Term Visual Localization in Dynamic Benthic Environments: A Dataset, Footprint-Based Ground Truth, and Visual Place Recognition Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.04056/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Effective monitoring of underwater ecosystems is crucial for tracking environmental changes, guiding conservation efforts, and ensuring long-term ecosystem health. However, automating underwater ecosystem management with robotic platforms remains challenging due to the complexities of underwater imagery, which pose significant difficulties for traditional visual localization methods. We propose an integrated pipeline that combines Visual Place Recognition (VPR), feature matching, and image segmentation on video-derived images. This method enables robust identification of revisited areas, estimation of rigid transformations, and downstream analysis of ecosystem changes. Furthermore, we introduce the SQUIDLE+ VPR Benchmark-the first large-scale underwater VPR benchmark designed to leverage an extensive collection of unstructured data from multiple robotic platforms, spanning time intervals from days to years. The dataset encompasses diverse trajectories, arbitrary overlap and diverse seafloor types captured under varying environmental conditions, including differences in depth, lighting, and turbidity. Our code is available at: https://github.com/bev-gorry/underloc