APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING A DISPARITY ESTIMATE

• US 20130272582A1
• Filed: 06/30/2011
• Published: 10/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Inventors: Schlosser, Markus, Ostermann, Ralf, Jachalsky, Jorn
• Granted Patent: US 9,591,281 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/107
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10021 Stereoscopic video; Stereoscopic image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/593 from stereo images
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/128 Adjusting depth or disparity
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/156 Mixing image signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/183 On-screen display [OSD] information, e.g. subtitles or menus

Abstract

The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for determining a disparity value for an object located in or to be placed into a stereoscopic image pair having an associated disparity map. First an area to be analyzed in one of the stereoscopic images is determined Then a histogram is built from disparity estimates of the associated disparity map that fall within the determined area. Subsequently a contiguous range of bins is searched in the histogram that also contains a sufficient number of pixels. Finally, a disparity estimate for the determined area is selected from the contiguous range of histogram bins.

Claims

1-12. -12. (canceled)

13. A method for determining a disparity value for an object located in or to be placed into a stereoscopic image pair, the stereoscopic image pair having an associated disparity map, the method comprising the steps of:

determining an area to be analyzed in one of the stereoscopic images;

building a histogram from disparity estimates of the associated disparity map that fall within the determined area;

searching a contiguous range of histogram bins that also contains at least a defined number of pixels; and

selecting a disparity estimate for the determined area from the contiguous range of histogram bins.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein only those disparity estimates falling within the determined area are used to build the histogram for which an associated confidence measure exceeds a defined threshold.

15. The method according to claim 13, wherein the histogram is built by accumulating associated confidence measures of the disparity estimates, or a value derived from the associated confidence measures of the disparity estimates.

16. The method according to claim 13, wherein the determined disparity estimate is used to adapt the stereoscopic image pair to a display.

17. The method according to claim 13, wherein the area to be analyzed in one of the stereoscopic images is the complete stereoscopic image.

18. The method according to claim 13, wherein the contiguous range farthest from a viewer is searched in the histogram.

19. The method according to claim 13, wherein the contiguous range closest to a viewer is searched in the histogram.

20. The method according to claim 19, wherein the area to he analyzed in one of the stereoscopic images is determined by the area of one or more graphics objects to be placed into the stereoscopic image pair.

21. The method according to claim 20, wherein the graphics object is a menu item, a score board, a logo or a subtitle.

22. The method according to claim 13, wherein the disparity estimate for the determined area is selected as the disparity for which the collected number of pixels surpasses the threshold or a fraction of the threshold, as a function of the absolute minimum, mean or maximum of the found contiguous range, or as a function of the maximum or median of a sub-histogram for this contiguous range.

23. The method according to claim 13, further comprising the step of subdividing the determined area to be analyzed.

24. An apparatus for determining a disparity value for an object located in or to be placed into a stereoscopic image pair, the stereoscopic image pair having an associated disparity map, wherein the apparatus comprises:

a graphics analyzing block configured to determine an area to be analyzed in one of the stereoscopic images;

a histogram building block configured to build a histogram from disparity estimates of the associated disparity map that fall within the determined area;

a searching block configured to search a contiguous range of histogram bins that also contains at least a defined number of pixels; and

a disparity estimation block configured to select a disparity estimate for the determined area from the contiguous range of histogram bins.