Stereo and Specular Reflection

  • Authors:
  • Dinkar N. Bhat;Shree K. Nayar

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027;Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Computer Vision
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

The problem of accurate depth estimation using stereoin the presence of specular reflection is addressed. Specularreflection, a fundamental and ubiquitous reflection mechanism, is viewpoint dependent and can cause large intensitydifferences at corresponding points,resulting in significant depth errors.We analyze the physics of specular reflectionand the geometry of stereopsis which lead to arelationship between stereo vergence, surface roughness, and thelikelihood of a correct match. Given a lower bound onsurface roughness, an optimal binocular stereo configurationcan be determined which maximizes precision in depthestimation despite specular reflection. However, surface roughness is difficult to estimate in unstructured environments. Therefore, trinocular configurations, independent of surface roughness are determined such that at each scene point visible to all sensors, at least one stereo pair can produce correct depth. We have developed a simple algorithm to reconstruct depth from the multiple stereo pairs.