High precision range estimation from an omnidirectional stereo system

This paper presents the estimation of depth based on the cylindrical re-projections of images captured by a stereo setup consisting of two sets of an ODV (omnidirectional vision system). In general, images obtained by such a device have a relatively low spatial resolution and have some aberration in comparison to standard camera images and thus, considerable range estimation errors are caused. We propose a stereo setup of an ODV, which features two mirrors with a contrived curvature to minimize blurring influence. We also propose an edge-based intensity interpolation method, a bi-directional sub-pixel matching procedure, and a discontinuity compensation algorithm to reduce the disparity error.