On an analysis of static occlusion in stereo vision

The authors consider the problem of occlusion in computing stereo disparity from a pair of images. Usual approaches to stereo matching, e.g. area-based, feature-based, etc., can perform poorly in the neighborhood of occluding boundaries if no surface models are assumed. Qualitative improvements are possible based on conditions derived from the geometry of occlusion. A pair of correspondence processes, using information near an occlusion boundary to localize the boundary, can determine the sign of associated depth discontinuity unambiguously. The proposed method is able to identify the presence and extent of occlusion regions and assign disparities in a consistent way near the occlusion regions.<<ETX>>