Patent ID: 8351653

Claim:
A system for determining distance to points from motion in captured images comprising: a moving image capture device capturing a first image and a second image; a processor coupled to the moving image capture device; a memory structured to store instructions executable by the processor, the instructions, when executed, cause the processor to execute steps of: determining a horizontal distance map including horizontal distances from the moving image capture device to a plurality of points determined from a horizontal component of an optical flow calculated from the first image and the second image; determining a vertical distance map including vertical distances from the moving image capture device to the plurality of points determined from a vertical component of the optical flow calculated from the first image and the second image; generating a modified horizontal distance map by applying a set of horizontal weights to the horizontal distance map, the set of horizontal weights attenuating horizontal distances associated with pixels in the horizontal distance map proximate to a vertical line intersecting a focus of expansion of the horizontal distance map; generating a modified vertical distance map by applying a set of vertical weights to the vertical distance map, the set of vertical weights attenuating vertical distances associated with pixels in the vertical distance map proximate to a horizontal line intersecting a focus of expansion of the vertical distance map; generating a distance map by combining the modified horizontal distance map and the modified vertical distance map; and storing the distance map in the memory.