METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DEPTH MODELLING AND PROVIDING DEPTH INFORMATION OF MOVING OBJECTS

A method and apparatus for indirect quantitative assessment or determination and modelling of the depth dimension of moving objects in signal streams where the depth information is not directly avaible, but where occlusion information can be derived. For this the method for estimating depth in an image sequence consisting of at least two frames comprises the steps of (1) selecting and characterizing recognizable points, (2) examining for each point in each frame whether it is visible or occluded, collecting this occlusion data in an occlusion list such that each frame corresponds to one row in the list and each point corresponds to a column in the list, such that elements in the list corresponding to visible points are given large, values and elements in the list corresponding to occluded points are given small values, (3) performing a Principal Component Analysis on the occlusion list, resulting in column vectors called score vectors and row vectors called loading vectors, the collection of one score vector with a value for each frame and one loading vector with a value for each point being called a factor, and (4) outputting the numerical value of each element of the loading vector of the first factor as depth information on the corresponding point, where a large numerical value indicates a point close to the camera or observer and a small numerical value indicates a point farther away.