Patent ID: 7043084

Claim:
A method for classifying an object in a scene comprising: acquiring a set of stereo images of the object in the scene with a set of stereo cameras; segmenting the object from the background using detected edges of the stereo images; generating a 3D reconstruction of the object from the detected edges of the stereo images in which the reconstruction further comprises: fitting a vertical plane to the 3D reconstruction; measuring a goodness-of-fit of the plane to the 3D reconstruction; taking a ratio of the goodness-of-fit over the height, where the height is a difference between a topmost point of the 3D reconstruction and a ground plane; and testing the ratio to classify the object as an ambulatory person or a wheelchair user; and performing tests on height and 3D shape of the 3D reconstruction to classify the object as an ambulatory person or a wheelchair user.