Robust vergence with concurrent detection of occlusion and specular highlights

The authors describe an exploratory vergence method which has the ability to detect occlusion and specular highlights using information that is inherent in the vergence process. They propose an active exploratory vergence method based on concurrent cross-correlation of multi-scale stereo images. This method is capable of detecting occlusion and specular highlights concurrently during the vergence process. It not only improves computational efficiency but also leads to the exploration of a better viewing direction and position that overcome the problem created by occlusion and specular highlights. An efficient parallel implementation of the multi-scale cross-correlation algorithm is also described. The robustness of the proposed method against occlusion and specular highlights is demonstrated