Near real-time stereo vision system
First Claim
1. A near real-time stereo vision apparatus comprising:
- first videocamera means for producing a first video output image responsive to light from an object scene;
second videocamera means for producing a second video output image responsive to light from said object scene;
first digitizing means for digitizing said first video image, having an input connected to an output of said first videocamera means, and having an output at which digital representations of said first video image appear;
second digitizing means for digitizing said second video image, having an input connected to an output of said second videocamera means, and having an output at which digital representations of said second video image appear;
videoprocessing means for successively producing sequential left and right stereo Laplacian pyramid images from said digital representations of said first and second video signals, having first and second inputs connected to said outputs of said first and second digitizing means; and
disparity map calculating means for calculating a disparity map of said object scene, operatively connected to said videoprocessing means and having storage means for storing an array of numerical values corresponding to the disparity at each pixel of a digital representation of said object scene;
wherein said disparity map can be used to generate control signals for semi-autonomous operation of a robotic vehicle or the like.
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Abstract
Apparatus and methods for near real-time stereo vision system for use with a robotic vehicle comprises two cameras mounted on three-axis rotation platforms, image-processing boards, a CPU, and specialized stereo vision algorithms. Bandpass-filtered image pyramids are computed, stereo matching is performed by least-squares correlation, and confidence ranges are estimated by means of Bayes'"'"' theorem. In particular, Laplacian image pyramids are built and disparity maps are produced from the 60×64 level of the pyramids at rates of up to 2 seconds per image pair. The first autonomous cross-country robotic traverses (of up to 100 meters) have been achieved using the stereo vision system of the present invention with all computing due aboard the vehicle. The overall approach disclosed herein provides a unifying paradigm for practical domain-independent stereo ranging.
190 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A near real-time stereo vision apparatus comprising:
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first videocamera means for producing a first video output image responsive to light from an object scene; second videocamera means for producing a second video output image responsive to light from said object scene; first digitizing means for digitizing said first video image, having an input connected to an output of said first videocamera means, and having an output at which digital representations of said first video image appear; second digitizing means for digitizing said second video image, having an input connected to an output of said second videocamera means, and having an output at which digital representations of said second video image appear; videoprocessing means for successively producing sequential left and right stereo Laplacian pyramid images from said digital representations of said first and second video signals, having first and second inputs connected to said outputs of said first and second digitizing means; and disparity map calculating means for calculating a disparity map of said object scene, operatively connected to said videoprocessing means and having storage means for storing an array of numerical values corresponding to the disparity at each pixel of a digital representation of said object scene; wherein said disparity map can be used to generate control signals for semi-autonomous operation of a robotic vehicle or the like. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of near real-time stereo vision comprising:
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producing a first video output signal responsive to light from an object scene; producing a second video output image responsive to light from said object scene; digitizing said first video image to produce digital representations of said first video image; digitizing said second video image to produce digital representations of said second video image; videoprocessing said digital representations by successively producing sequential Laplacian stereo image pyramid pairs from said digital representations of said first and second video images; and calculating a disparity map of said object scene and storing an array of numerical values corresponding to the disparity at each pixel of a digital representation of said object scene. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification