A revisit to MRF-based depth map super-resolution and enhancement

This paper presents a Markov Random Field (MRF)-based approach for depth map super-resolution and enhancement. Given a low-resolution or moderate quality depth map, we study the problem of enhancing its resolution or quality with a registered high-resolution color image. Different from the previous methods, this MRF-based approach is based on a novel data term formulation that fits well to the unique characteristics of depth maps. We also discuss a few important design choices that boost the performance of general MRF-based methods. Experimental results show that our proposed approach achieves high-resolution depth maps at more desirable quality, both qualitatively and quantitatively. It can also be applied to enhance the depth maps derived with state-of-the-art stereo methods, resulting in the raised ranking based on the Middlebury benchmark.