Wide range depth estimation from two blurred images with tilted lens optics

It is possible to make depth measurements with comparative ease using the stereo camera method. However, because a lengthy baseline is required, this technique is not readily applicable to in-vehicle tasks, which need to be robust to accommodate various disturbances. Also, it is impossible to use conventional monocular-camera methods over a wide visible range in real-time. Therefore, this paper proposes a wide-range depth estimation method based on blurred images from a monocular imaging device. Our proposed method obtains two separately focused images for one scene spectroscopically. Our method inclines the plane of sharp focus (POF) and the depth of field (DOF) in the desired direction of depth measurement using tilted lens optics. Then, a depth estimation can be obtained from the blur rate between two pixels at the position of interest in each image. Our method does not require a long baseline, yet offers a wide detectable range in real-time, making it viable for in-vehicle tasks. Then, by comparing the estimation accuracy of our method to the simple stereo method, this paper demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach.