Issues in adapting research algorithms to stereoscopic visual effects

Many published machine vision algorithms are designed to be real-time and fully automatic with low computational complexity. These attributes are essential for applications such as stereo robotic vision. Motion Picture Digital Visual Effect facilities, however, have massive computation resources available and can afford human interaction to initialise algorithms and to guide them towards a good solution. On the other hand, motion pictures have significantly higher accuracy requirements and other unique challenges. Not all machine vision algorithms can readily be adapted to this environment. In this paper we outline the requirements of visual effects and indicate several challenges involved in using image processing and machine vision algorithms for stereo motion picture visual effects.