A horizon line annotation tool for streamlining autonomous sea navigation experiments

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new annotation tool designed to simplify and accelerate the process of marking horizon lines in marine images, supporting improved dataset collection for autonomous sea navigation research.

Contribution

The paper presents the first publicly available annotation software specifically tailored for horizon line detection in marine environments, addressing a key bottleneck in dataset creation.

Findings

Facilitates faster annotation of sea horizon lines.

Supports collection of diverse sea condition data.

Enhances robustness of horizon line detectors.

Abstract

Horizon line (or sea line) detection (HLD) is a critical component in multiple marine autonomous navigation tasks, such as identifying the navigation area (i.e., the sea), obstacle detection and geo-localization, and digital video stabilization. A recent survey highlighted several weaknesses of such detectors, particularly on sea conditions lacking from the most extensive dataset currently used by HLD researchers. Experimental validation of more robust HLDs involves collecting an extensive set of these lacking sea conditions and annotating each collected image with the correct position and orientation of the horizon line. The annotation task is daunting without a proper tool. Therefore, we present the first public annotation software with tailored features to make the sea line annotation process fast and easy. The software is available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c0ZmvYDckuQCPIWfh_70P7E1A_DWlIvF?usp=sharing