Patent ID: 8437536

Claim:
An environment recognition system comprising: image taking means for taking a pair of images of the same object in a surrounding environment with a pair of cameras and outputting the pair of images; stereo matching means for conducting stereo matching on each of a plurality of pairs of images taken by different image taking methods or each of a plurality of pairs of images formed by subjecting a pair of taken images to different image processing methods, and for forming distance images in a one-to-one correspondence with the plurality of pairs of images by assigning calculated parallaxes to pixel blocks in the images; selection means for dividing the distance images into a plurality of vertical strip sections, calculating representative parallaxes respectively for the sections, selecting any of the representative parallaxes of corresponding sections in the distance images, and selecting the representative parallax for each of the sections; and detection means for detecting the object in the images on the basis of the representative parallaxes of the sections.