Color stereo matching and its application to 3-D measurement of optic nerve head

Presents a color stereo matching method. The authors first show the effect of using color information in stereo matching mathematically by using sum-of-squared-differences (SSD) criterion and then experimentally by using synthesized images. They then present a color stereo matching algorithm for a medical application. The algorithm takes into account both the intensity and the disparity variations within the matching window, and estimates the disparity at subpixel resolution exploiting color stereo images. The authors have applied the algorithm to three-dimensional measurement of optic nerve heads using stereo fundus images. The experimental results shows that the proposed stereo algorithm together with various means of displaying the results could give useful information for diagnosing and monitoring glaucoma