Last week, a team of MBARI researchers participated in the sixth Marine Imaging Workshop. This international conference brings together scientists and engineers from various disciplines to share knowledge and best practices for visualizing the ocean, its ecosystems, and its inhabitants. 

During the three-day conference in Gibraltar, MBARI researchers shared new advancements in ocean imaging technology. Engineers from MBARI’s Bioinspiration Lab introduced an autonomous underwater robot equipped with a novel three-camera imaging system that can enable real-time observation and classification of marine life. Researchers from MBARI’s Video Lab presented new workflows for integrating machine learning tools into the Video Annotation and Reference System (VARS). The team also shared their progress developing next-generation artificial intelligence tools for video annotation that will leverage the rich scientific content found in MBARI’s one-of-a-kind deep-sea video archive.

The team from the FathomNet Program—a multi-institution initiative for advancing AI tools for ocean exploration led by MBARI Principal Engineer Kakani Katija—hosted a workshop on leveraging the open-source FathomNet Database to analyze large visual datasets, and shared how the FathomVerse community science app is helping accelerate the labeling of ocean imagery.

International meetings like the Marine Imaging Workshop are important opportunities to share MBARI’s expertise, research, data, and technology with the wider ocean exploration community to expand our capacity to study our changing ocean. Together with our peers, we are working to advance imaging technology to collect visual data about marine life and ecosystems that can ultimately guide responsible stewardship of the ocean and its resources.

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