Fast depth estimation on mobile platforms and FPGA devices

In this paper, we propose a fast technique for real-time depth estimation that is implementable on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Moreover, the FPGA-based implementations of this technique are also reported. The idea of this technique is to use small-block matching and exploit the recently estimated disparity values in order to enhance spatial consistency of the output disparity map. Using the Middlebury stereoscopic test images, the proposed real-time technique is compared to other techniques known from the references. The obtained results demonstrate high efficiency of the proposed technique implemented both on mobile platforms and FPGA devices.