Fast stereo with background removal using phase correlation

Segmenting a scene into meaningful regions is a classical problem. One of the methods is segmentation from stereo (on condition that the object has sufficient texture). Most of the time, our interest is foreground objects. However, in dense stereo matching the entire image is processed, thereby wasting time. Hence, in order to process only the foreground objects, we insert a preliminary process to discard the background using dominant motion estimation. Our method estimates the background from stereo images using the phase correlation method. The dominant background area, which has high phase correlation, is then eliminated leaving the foreground to be processed by the traditional Sum of Squared Differences (SSD) algorithm. Thereby, the time taken for the overall process is reduced.