A Systolic Multi-layer Stereo Matching Algorithm

摘要

Stereo vision is the process of recreating 3-D spatial information from a pair of 2-D images. We propose a multilayer stereo vision algorithm and architecture which makes it possible to match two images in real time, without the rectification of the image (the rectification means making the scan line parallel to the epipolar line). It is the self calibration method that searches the pixel within several lines of one image corresponding to a pixel on the scan line of the other image to solve the epipolar probelm. We also propose a subpixel multi-layer system which considers subpixel data. It is useful for the stereo matching of the image with the characteristics of the high frequency bandwidth. The total time complexity is O(N) so that real time processing is possible. The hardware architecture is a simple linear systolic array apt for ASIC. The hardware design is verified by simulations, and it is confirmed that this system can process typical video image sequences in real time.