Using multiple disparity hypotheses for improved indoor stereo

This paper describes the design and implementation of an algorithm for improving the performance of stereo vision in environments presenting repetitive patterns or regions with relatively weak texture. The proposed algorithm makes use of the common assumption that the disparities corresponding to continuous surfaces in the world vary smoothly; we are using this assumption to alleviate the correspondence problem for pixels that cannot be reliably matched by the stereo algorithm. Our approach can be described as a reliability based filtering of the disparity image followed by a recursive propagation step. It can be applied to the output of almost any "standard" stereo algorithm with minimal modifications, and is computationally efficient.