Efficient disparity map estimation using occlusion handling for various 3D multimedia applications

Disparity acquisition is beneficial to various 3D multimedia applications, i.e., free viewpoint TV (FTV), 3DTV, and 3D scene model reconstruction. In this paper, we propose an efficient disparity map estimation method with occlusion handling taken into account. In order to detect occlusion, we obtain left and right initial disparity maps via optimization based on modified constant-space belief propagation, a low complexity algorithm. The initial disparity maps provide clues for occlusion detection. From the clues, an energy function is defined and optimized by energy minimization framework. We define two occlusion types and apply suitable occlusion handling processes, accordingly. The proposed occlusion handling method extends disparity values of visible pixels to occluded pixels. Experimental results show that our method provides near-ground truth occlusion and a superior disparity map compared to other stateof- the-art methods with occlusion handling. Our contribution provides solid advantages regarding disparity map estimation, which is useful for various 3D multimedia applications.