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MBARI shares latest tech innovations for visualizing ocean life and ecosystems at Marine Imaging Workshop

Behind the Scenes

MBARI researchers have developed advanced imaging systems to visualize the ocean and its inhabitants. The Marine Imaging Workshop provided an opportunity to share MBARI’s tech innovations with scientists and engineers from around the world. Image: © 2022 MBARI

MBARI shares latest tech innovations for visualizing ocean life and ecosystems at Marine Imaging Workshop

An MBARI engineer speaks into a thin black microphone at a podium. The engineer has shoulder-length black hair. She is wearing a cream-colored long-sleeved blouse and a blue-and-white name tag and is holding a laser pointer. The gray podium has a black-and-white sign with the words 5th Marine Imaging Workshop and a photo of a deep-sea comb jelly. The heads of seated conference attendees are out of focus in the foreground. In the background is a wood-paneled wall.
The Fifth Marine Imaging Workshop offered MBARI researchers the opportunity to share their expertise with their peers from around the world. Image: Joost Daniels © 2024 MBARI

MBARI is at the forefront of ocean technology, advancing innovative solutions to visualize and understand the ocean, its inhabitants, and its ecosystems. We develop tools to assess ocean health and track how human actions affect marine life and environments. 

Since 1988, MBARI’s underwater robots have captured nearly 30,000 hours of deep-sea footage. This visual archive is a vital resource for studying the ocean. MBARI software engineers developed the Video Annotation and Research System (VARS) to help experts in our Video Lab annotate and analyze this trove of underwater video footage. Researchers at MBARI and our collaborators around the world have access to millions of annotations that can be sorted and retrieved by specific animal observations, each tagged with their associated depth, location, and environmental conditions. This carefully labeled imagery also helps train AI to identify marine life, further accelerating marine discovery. Our partnership with the FathomNet Program and data contributions to the FathomNet Database further enhances our ocean exploration and discovery. 

MBARI engineers develop systems to visualize the ocean in exciting new ways. Advanced laser instruments from the Bioinspiration Lab have revealed the complex structure of delicate gelatinous organisms. A sensor suite designed by the Seafloor Mapping Lab combines light and acoustics to visualize the seafloor at a centimeter scale. Drifting cameras developed by the Carbon Flux Ecology Team document sinking particles of organic material to fill in the gaps in our understanding of the ocean-climate connection. These technologies are among the many MBARI tools that enable researchers to observe both individual animal behaviors and complex ecological interactions.

Members of MBARI’s marine operations crew recover a remotely operated vehicle after a successful dive in Monterey Bay. The robotic submersible has a bright orange float with a stylized treatment of the name Ventana that uses MBARI’s gulper eel logo as the V. Beneath the float is a black metal frame with various pieces of equipment and wires. The submersible is attached to a black-and-white crane and positioned over the side of a research ship. A bright-yellow cable connected to the submersible extends to the right to a crew member in a white hard hat, navy jacket, orange life vest, jeans, and brown boots standing on the gray deck of an MBARI research ship. A second crew member wearing a white hard hat, an orange jacket, olive-green pants, and black work boots operated a crane to the right. The background is dark-blue ocean.
MBARI’s robotic submersibles have filmed nearly 30,000 hours of underwater video. Our vehicles were recently upgraded with new 4K cameras developed by MBARI engineers. Image: Kavi Treesong-Engel © 2024 MBARI
An MBARI research technician wearing a dark-green sweater sits at her desk in a dimmed cubicle using a dual computer monitor. The left monitor is playing a video of a pink deep-sea coral, and the right monitor has custom annotation software displaying several small text labels that logs information about the coral video.
Deep-sea experts in the Video Lab use the Video Annotation and Research System (VARS) to tag and label animal observations with their associated depth, location, and environmental conditions. Image © 2022 MBARI
A machine learning model places several multi-colored boxes around objects in underwater video. Each box is labeled with a number, the name of the object, and a score for certainty of identification. The underlying video is brown muddy seafloor with several stick-like sea pens across the middle of the frame.
Featuring expertly-labeled visual data from MBARI and other partners, the FathomNet database can be used to train AI to identify marine life, accelerating ocean exploration and discovery. Image: © 2020 MBARI
The seafloor mapping toolsled hangs from a crane inside MBARI’s test tank. The toolsled has a weathered metal frame, silver and black metal canisters, and a tangle of green, blue, and yellow cables. The toolsled is suspended by a yellow crane hook and red ropes as the lidar canister projects three green lasers toward the bottom of the tank. The background is the gray concrete wall of the test tank.
The Seafloor Mapping Lab uses lidar technology to visualize the seafloor in high resolution. Lidar uses laser light to recreate a three-dimensional model of the deep seafloor. Image: Todd Walsh © 2018 MBARI
A three-dimensional visualization of the seafloor shows several beds of tube-like deep-sea clams. The clams are clustered on the right side of the frame. Several have left tracks in the sediment. The image has a color gradient from orange to yellow to green, representing depth and relief.
The Low-Altitude Survey System developed by the Seafloor Mapping Lab can visualize the seafloor in centimeter-scale resolution, capturing animals, like beds of deep-sea clams, in remarkable detail. Image: © MBARI
A deep-sea robot with a yellow float at the top, a black metal frame in the middle, a silver metal frame, and two transparent acrylic cylinders at the base sit on the gray deck of a research vessel. Two bright white headlights are shining at the top of the robot. A silver metal mechanical arm is on the left, and two camera systems are on the right. The camera system in the foreground has a black silver canister on a black metal rod that shines a red light. A silver mechanical arm holds the camera system in the background and has a gray metal canister with five red lights. This robot was photographed indoors, from the side, sitting on a pair of mechanical doors with various maritime equipment visible in the background.
New and innovative imaging technologies developed by the Bioinspiration Lab are transforming how scientists study delicate ocean animals and expediting efforts to document deep-sea biodiversity. Image: Joost Daniels © 2021 MBARI
A deep-sea jelly with a broad, plate-like belly drifts in the water column. This scan with a three-dimensional imaging system renders the image in rainbow colors, indicating the distance to the camera, with red closer and blue farther away. The stiff tentacles in the foreground are green, and the tentacles in the background are blue. The background is black water with particles of organic material rendered in red, yellow, and orange, depending on their distance to the camera lens.
The EyeRIS imaging system developed by MBARI’s Bioinspiration Lab creates three-dimensional images of deep-sea animals, like this dinner plate jelly (Solmissus sp.). Image: Paul Roberts © 2021 MBARI
A person sitting in a park plays the FathomVerse game on their mobile phone. The person has shoulder-length black hair in a ponytail and is wearing a sleeveless sweater with beige and white stripes and blue jeans. They are holding a smartphone in a pink case. The person is outdoors and in the background on the right are terraces of brown dirt, and on the left are green grass and brown tree trunks.
The FathomVerse mobile game is an interactive community science experience where players can engage with real ocean imagery collected by researchers and robots from around the world. Image: Lilli Carlsen © 2024 MBARI

MBARI’s deep-sea imagery is crucial to the institute’s education and outreach efforts. The SciComm Team and Video Lab create engaging videos about MBARI’s work that highlight the important role the ocean plays for all life on Earth. By sharing these productions on MBARI’s social media platforms, we seek to inspire the next generation of ocean explorers. MBARI imagery is also integral to FathomVerse. Bridging research and public engagement, this mobile game developed as part of the FathomNet Program invites ocean enthusiasts to collaborate with scientists to train AI to identify marine life.

An MBARI engineer wearing a teal fleece jacket and a black t-shirt leads an interactive workshop. The engineer is seated at a table with a silver computer in front of him. In the foreground are workshop participants, seated at tables covered in white tablecloths. In the background is a projector screen displaying a blue software application with a photo of the seafloor on the left and white text annotations on the right. Behind the screen is a gray paneled wall.
MBARI Software Engineer Brian Schlining led an interactive workshop about the Video Annotation and Research System (VARS), sharing a comprehensive overview of the software infrastructure and guiding users through the process of setting up and running a VARS system for use at their institution. Image: Marike Pinsonneault © 2024 MBARI

Collaboration is essential for maximizing the potential of science and technology to help us understand the ocean. As a leader in marine science and technology, MBARI shares our tech innovations with our peers worldwide. This week, MBARI hosted the Fifth Marine Imaging Workshop, sharing our latest technology developments with over a hundred scientists and engineers from around the world.

Supported by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Oceanic Engineering Society (IEEE OES), with additional funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Schmidt Ocean Institute, Boxfish Robotics, and SubC Imaging, the Marine Imaging Workshop fosters an environment where researchers, enthusiasts, and industry professionals can engage with cutting-edge ocean imaging techniques, explore data analysis, and discuss the application of AI to support ocean exploration. By bringing together participants from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, the Marine Imaging Workshop promotes knowledge-sharing and collaboration. In over a dozen presentations, hands-on workshops, and posters, MBARI researchers shared their expertise in image analysis, data collection methodologies, effective data management and dissemination, and more.

Sharing MBARI research, data, technology, and expertise at events like the Marine Imaging Workshop helps the ocean exploration community grow its capacity to measure and monitor ocean health. Together with our peers, we are working to advance imaging technology to collect visual data about ocean health. The information the marine science and technology community gathers can ultimately guide responsible stewardship of the ocean and its resources.

Story by Science Communication Fellow Marike Pinsonneault

For additional information or images relating to this article, please email pressroom@mbari.org.

MBARI Team

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