Using occluding contours for recovering shape properties of objects

The authors present an algorithm for detecting occluding contours and for reconstructing the depth map along them. An algorithm for computing the two main curvatures of the surface in the neighborhood of the occluding contours is also given. The authors show that occluding edges are a robust source of 3D information. Points on the rim can be accurately reconstructed, and good estimates for the second-order differential properties of the surface in the vicinity of the rim can be obtained. Results obtained using the algorithms on synthetic and real data are reported