Coral reefs hosts nearly 25% of most marine species and provide food sources for half a billion people worldwide while only a very small percentage have been surveyed. skeletons with high quality texture mapping and detailed topographic morphology were produced, and Surface Area and Volume measurements (parameters widely used for ecological and coral health studies) were calculated and analysed. Moreover, we integrated collected sample models with micro-photogrammetry models of individual corallites to aid identification and colony and polyp scale analysis. Introduction CMKBR7 It has been estimated that coral reefs support an approximate 25% of all marine life, and as a consequence, they are a significant food source for half a billion people worldwide [1]. The total financial value of the valuable organisms runs from US$ 100,000 to US$ 600,000 per rectangular kilometre each year [2]. They are necessary in supporting individual life, however they are fragile and under serious threat [3] currently. The drop in coral reef populations continues 81-25-4 to be observed in latest decades, and it’s been observed that up to 70% from the world’s reefs are endangered or ruined, by environmental tension but mainly because of individual activity [4 partially, 5]. Globally, coral reefs take up an estimated section of 284,000 kilometres2 [6]. Nevertheless, monitoring initiatives and biodiversity research have already been scarce and sparse fairly, located in scorching areas generally, reefs with established scientific channels and areas constantly distressed by visitor actions close by. Many known reefs never have been surveyed plus some are believed 90% unmapped [7]. Furthermore, classical monitoring initiatives of coral reef benthic assemblages (quadrats, transects, manta tows, etc.) could be a extremely labour intensive job. They can depend on a huge selection of volunteer divers, are error-prone, centered on a little/medium scale, could be harmful to divers and also have a significant carbon foot print out [8]. If accurate and specific strategies are utilized, monitoring becomes very time consuming [9]. Coral research can also be destructive, as some studies require a high number of colonies or segments of them [one study sampled up to 72 colonies) for treatment and analysis [10]. Furthermore, if non-contact measurement methods are employed, visual estimates performed by SCUBA divers are not accurate enough to detect small dimensional changes and inter-observer variability increases errors [11]. Reef-scale remote sensing technologies have been effectively used in the last decades, like satellite and LiDAR imaging [12, 13, 14, 15], but these have inconsistencies in accuracy (particularly in finer scale morphologies of coral colonies) [16]. These also have disparities in discrimination of distinct coral reef habitat boundaries, when the water column characteristics aren’t optimum specifically, and can be expensive rather than available [17 easily, 18]. Presently, the explosive advancement of 81-25-4 imaging and digital systems, and raising internet rates of speed and computational power at a reducing price continuously, have got resulted 81-25-4 in the inclusion of the technology in monitoring and study initiatives. Several manufacturers have got recently created and released brand-new lightweight devices that are easy to take care of (e.g. GoPro), with the capacity of executing under extreme conditions, providing low cost still images and video 81-25-4 sequences of high resolution. These devices, coupled with intense development in visual and algorithm processing sciences along with companies competing to offer open source programs, have produced a viable alternative to traditional methods. They are easy to use without considerable design/programming nor computational skills, and are effective for morphological measurements. Recently, a growing number of studies have investigated the use of 3D technologies. These involve photogrammetric methods for underwater measurements of organisms and reef benthic assemblages, considering length, surface area, and volume calculations using images or video [8 still, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24]. Nevertheless, those people who have utilized stereo-photogrammetry will often have required a bulky body mounted on the surveillance cameras to picture underwater. This.