Modeling Dynamic 3D Environments by Means of The Stixel World

Correlation-based stereo vision has proven its power in commercially available driver assistance systems. Recently, real-time dense stereo matching algorithms have become available on inexpensive low-power FPGA hardware. In order to manage that huge amount of data, a medium-level representation named “Stixel World” has been proposed for further analysis. In this representation the free space in front of the vehicle is limited by adjacent rectangular sticks of a certain width. Distance and height of each so called Stixel are determined by those parts of the obstacle it represents. This Stixel World is a compact but flexible representation of the three-dimensional traffic situation. The underlying model assumption is that objects stand on the ground and have a vertical pose with a flat surface.