Patent ID: 6516087
Filing Date: 2003-02-04
Classification: G06K,G06T,H04N

Abstract:
A method for stereo imaging correlation comprising:a. taking a reference image of a subject with a first stereo camera the reference image comprised of a first set of pixels, each pixel having a unique coordinate and gray scale value; b. taking a shift image of the subject with a second stereo camera, the shift image comprised of a second set of pixels, each pixel having a unique coordinate and gray scale value, the second camera spaced from the first camera in one dimension; c. performing Laplacian transforms on the reference image and the shift image to form a reference gray scale Laplacian image and a shift gray scale Laplacian image; d. forming a reduced gray scale Laplacian reference image and a reduced gray scale Laplacian shift image such that each pixel in the reduced gray scale Laplacian images are assigned a value of +1, 0 or âˆ’1; e. performing a correlation between the reference reduced gray scale Laplacian image and the shift reduced gray scale Laplacian image images comprising the steps of: i) overlapping the reference reduced gray scale Laplacian image and the shift reduced gray scale Laplacian image to create an overlap image having pairs of overlapping pixels; ii) combining the assigned values of selected pairs of overlapping pixels to form a reduced gray scale correlation image of correlation values, one correlation value for each pair of overlapping pixels; iii) combining regions of the reduced gray scale correlation image so that a continuous correlation function exists for the image; iv) shifting the shift reduced gray scale Laplacian image relative to the reference reduced gray scale Laplacian image; and v) repeating steps i) through iv) to create a set of gray scale overlap correlation images; f. using the gray scale overlap correlation images to select an overlap per pixel in the reference image; and g. using the selected overlap to determine a position of at least one point on the subject.