Stereo matching method using multiple angular signatures matched by multidimensional dynamic timewarping (MD-DTW)

We consider the problem of matching interest points (IPs) extracted from the two images of a stereoscopic pair. We describe each IP via a descriptor consisting in one angular signature for a grayscale image, three signatures for a color image, and, more generally, N signatures for N coregistered images of different modalities. Each angular signature is generated by spinning a “steerable x-tapered, y-derivative, half-Gaussian filter” 360° around each IP. The novel contribution of the paper is the use of multidimensional dynamic time warping (MD-DTW) for (1) producing a single, common warping for all pairs of corresponding signatures in the two descriptors of two IPs that are candidate for matching, and (2) for computing a single related distance between the two sets of signatures. Preliminary experimental results and a comparison with the results obtained with SIFT descriptors and matching via the smallest Euclidean distance in parameter space demonstrates the value of this novel approach.