Recursive disparity estimation algorithm for real time stereoscopic video applications

Several implementations of a recursive disparity estimator have been investigated in which bi-directional spatial predictions as well as temporal predictions are used. The recursive disparity estimator is showed to be very attractive for real time multi-view interpolation applications because of the use of the predictions and small search ranges or update sets. The estimated disparity fields are smooth, causing less visible artifacts in the interpolated intermediate viewpoints. Moreover, the recursive estimator is attractive for hardware implementation. Only a small number of updates have to be checked, thereby considerably reducing the number of operations to be executed