Process for estimating disparity between the monoscopic images making up a sterescopic image

Claim 1

Process for estimating disparity between the monoscopic images making up a stereoscopic image, comprising the steps of: first, carrying out one and the same hierarchical decomposition of each monoscopic image by levels of resolution, thereby building at least three pyramids of images of increasing resolutions, one low-frequency image pyramid and two high-frequency image pyramids in the horizontal and vertical directions of the images; second, estimating a disparity at the coarsest level of resolution and in refining the estimate in each level as the resolution increases, the disparity being represented at each point of the image by a disparity vector whose origin is situated at the point of one of the monoscopic images and on the tip at the corresponding point of the other monoscopic image; the estimating of disparity being realized with the aid of a hierarchical decomposition of the monoscopic images into sub-bands while preserving at each level of the decomposition the low frequency band and the high frequency bands respectively representing the vertical and the horizontal outlines of the images, for each estimate and at a given resolution level, three prediction vectors being used to calculate a disparity vector of the level higher than said given resolution level; an additional temporal prediction being realized by projection of a disparity vector estimated, at the moment t-1, at a given point between the monoscopic images being, at this moment, in the same resolution level, said projection being realized in the direction of the vector defining the movement between moments t-1 and t, t being a moment t-1.