Patent ID: 8417022

Claim:
A stereo-image processing apparatus, comprising: stereo-image taking means configured to take a plurality of images from different viewpoints; parallax detecting means configured to detect parallax of a subject based on the images taken by the stereo-image taking means; object detecting means configured to detect objects based on parallax detected by the parallax detecting means and a parallax offset value; and parallax-offset-value correcting means configured to correct the parallax offset value based on a change in parallax corresponding to an object whose size in real space does not change with time, of the objects detected by the object detecting means, and a change in an apparent size of the object, wherein the parallax-offset-value correcting means calculates a parallax error based on the changes in parallax and the apparent size of the object, and corrects the parallax offset value based on the parallax error, the parallax-offset-value correcting means calculates the parallax error ε according to the following expression when parallax changes from dp 1 to dp 2 and the apparent size of the object changes from b 1 to b 2 : ε=( b 1 ·dp 2 −b 2 ·dp 1 )/( b 2 −b 1 ), and the parallax-offset-value correcting means corrects the parallax offset value based on the parallax error ε.