Patent ID: 8736669

Claim:
A method for the generation of m>0 synthetic images, from a stereo image of a stereo image sequence comprising at least a previous stereo image and a current stereo image, each with two or more sub-images having pixels the sub-images being received left and right images, the method comprising: identifying a constant image area consisting of pixels in a sub-image of a current stereo image that deviates from the pixels of an area of a sub-image of the previous stereo image by less than a given value; the pixels of the previous stereo image having computed disparity values, re-using the computed disparity values from the pixels of the area of the sub-image of the previous stereo image and assigning the computed disparity values to the pixels of the identified area of the sub-image of the current stereo image; computing the disparity values for the non-constant image areas using processing parameters comprising vectors F L and F R and the processing size G(t) wherein the vectors F L and F R assign features obtained by feature extraction methods to the pixels of the sub-images forming the stereo images; rendering the synthetic images to have a maximum resolution and a minimal image error and; measuring with a control unit the processing time t, being the time elapsed since receiving the stereo image, and if the processing time t is longer than the time between receipt of two stereo images, the control unit modifies the processing parameters by either of the following two options: at least one feature of the presently used feature vectors F L F R no longer evaluated, the processing size G(t) is reduced; or if the processing time t is shorter than the time between receipt of two stereo images, the control unit modifies the processing parameters by either of the following two options: additional features are added to the presently used feature vectors F L and F R ; the processing size G(t) is enlarged, in order that the generation of the synthetic images comprising the current stereo image is finished before a next stereo image in the sequence is received.