An analysis of stereo disparity for the recovery of three-dimensional scene geometry

The recovery of three-dimensional scene geometry from binocular stereo disparity is discussed. In order to accomplish this goal an analysis of disparity is presented. The analysis makes explicit the geometric relations between a stereo disparity field and a differentially projected scene. These results show how it is possible to recover scene properties, such as relative surface depth and orientation, in a direct fashion from stereo disparity. As a particular application of the analysis, a method for recovering the discontinuities of surfaces from stereo disparity is presented. The results of applying this method to both natural and synthetic binocular stereo disparity information are also presented