SYMMETRIC STEREO MODEL FOR HANDLING OCCLUSION

The present symmetric stereo matching technique provides a method for iteratively estimating a minimum energy for occlusion and disparity using belief propagation. The minimum energy is based on an energy minimization framework in which a visibility constraint is embedded. By embedding the visibility constraint, the present symmetric stereo matching technique treats both images equally, instead of treating one as a reference image. The visibility constraint ensures that occlusion in one view and the disparity in another view are consistent.