PHASE-BASED BINOCULAR VERGENCE CONTROL AND DEPTH RECONSTRUCTION USINGACTIVE VISION

We present a technique for guiding vergence movements for an active st ereo camera system and for calculating dense disparity maps. Both proc esses are described in the same theoretical framework based on phase d ifferences in complex Gabor filter responses, modeling receptive field properties in the visual cortex. While the camera movements are compu ted with input images of coarse spatial resolution, the disparity map calculation uses a finer resolution in the scale space. The correspond ence problem is solved implicitly by restricting the disparity range a round zero disparity (Panum's area in the human visual system). The ve rgence process is interpreted as a mechanism to minimize global dispar ity, thereby setting a 3D region of interest for subsequent disparity detection. The disparity map represents smaller local disparities as a n important cue for depth perception. Experimental data for the integr ated performance of vergence in natural scenes followed by disparity m ap calculations are presented. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.