Phase-Based Binocular Vergence Control and Depth Reconstruction Using Active Vision

We present a technique for guiding vergence movements for an active stereo camera system and for calculating dense disparity maps. Both processes are described in the same theoretical framework based on phase differences in complex Gabor filter responses, modeling receptive field properties in the visual cortex. While the camera movements are computed with input images of coarse spatial resolution, the disparity map calculation uses a finer resolution in the scale space. The correspondence problem is solved implicitly by restricting the disparity range around zero disparity (Panum′s area in the human visual system). The vergence process is interpreted as a mechanism to minimize global disparity, thereby setting a 3D region of interest for subsequent disparity detection. The disparity map represents smaller local disparities as an important cue for depth perception. Experimental data for the integrated performance of vergence in natural scenes followed by disparity map calculations are presented.