A modified census transform using the representative intensity values

In the census transform, hamming weight calculation is an important process because the hamming weight is the criterion for finding the similarity between stereo images. If the intensity value of a center pixel is changed by different illumination of two cameras, erroneous hamming weight calculation can happen. To compensate for such vulnerability to different illumination, this paper suggests a modified census transform method using representative values. In the proposed method, the intensity value of the center pixel in the window is replaced by the representative values, which are the midpoint and mean intensity values in the window. Experimental results show that the census transform with the proposed hamming weight calculation is less dependent on the different illumination of two cameras and has higher matching accuracy compared with the previous recent work on the census transform.