COMPOUND EYE IMAGING APPARATUS, DISTANCE MEASURING APPARATUS, DISPARITY CALCULATION METHOD, AND DISTANCE MEASURING METHOD

A compound eye imaging apparatus can estimate a sub-pixel disparity with a high degree of accuracy without depending on a brightness of a surface of an object. The compound eye imaging apparatus includes: a standard imaging optical system generating a picture including a standard image; reference imaging optical systems of an even number equal to or larger than two arranged substantially point-symmetrically with respect to the standard imaging optical system, which generate an picture including a reference image; a correlation value calculation unit (6) calculating a correlation value for each shifting amount by which one of the reference images is shifted parallel to a baseline, with respect to the standard image, for each of the reference imaging optical systems of an even number equal to or larger than two; a correlation value addition unit (7) calculating an integrated correlation value by adding, to each corresponding shifting amount, the correlation value calculated for each of said reference imaging optical systems of an even number equal to or larger than two; and a disparity calculation unit (8) calculating a disparity that is a shifting amount resulting in the largest degree of similarity between the standard image and the reference image.