Epipolar Rectification 9 (ER9)

ER9 is an implementation of Quasi-Euclidean Uncalibrated Epipolar Rectification by A. Fusiello and L. Irsara using the algorithm in Quasi-Euclidean Epipolar Rectification by Pascal Monasse.

Epipolar rectification (of the uncalibrated kind) takes 2 images taken by a stereo rig and transform them such that stereo matches are all along horizontal lines. This is crucial to get the best possible results in automatic depth map generation.

Here's an example:

The stereo pair originally comes from Peter Simcoe. I reduced its size in StereoPhotoMaker and also auto-aligned it in StereoPhotoMaker.

Left image.

Right image.

Wiggle that shows that the above stereo pair is not well rectified. There's clearly some rotation going on between the two views.

Depth map obtained with Depth Map Automatic Generator 2 (DMAG2) using min disparity = -13 and max disparity = 10 (all other parameters are default).

Let's rectify the images with ER9 and see what happens.

Left image rectified by ER9.

Right image rectified by ER9.

Wiggle that shows that above stereo pair is now well aligned. There's no rotation between the two views.

Depth map obtained with Depth Map Automatic Generator 2 (DMAG2) using min disparity = -13 and max disparity = 10 (all other parameters are default).

I think it's safe to say that the depth map obtained from the stereo pair rectified by ER9 is better than the one obtained from the stereo pair not rectified by ER9 (but still auto-aligned by StereoPhotoMaker).

The windows executable (guaranteed to be virus free) is available for free via the 3D Software Page.