Stereo disparity computation in the DCT domain using genetic algorithms

The objective of stereo matching is, given a point in one view of a scene, to find the homologous point in another view from an adjacent camera. We use the discrete cosine transform (DCT) with evolutionary methods as an approach to solve the correspondence problem. The matching process is implemented by generating for each image block sets of DCT coefficients, which when reverse transformed become the estimated disparity map for that block. Assumed statistical properties of the AC coefficients are taken into account, while the DC component is estimated from a preliminary block matching stage. Matching is performed in the image domain using an intensity similarity measure. The job of optimising the DCT coefficients, whose inverse transform gives the disparity, is carried out by a biologically inspired optimisation technique: the genetic algorithm