Visual disparity

The effects of visual disparity - observing a scene from two different viewpoints. To the right to can see one of the original images (the Rodney robot looking at a cup). To the left you can see both left and right images interlaced together. There is a big difference in horizontal position for nearby objects such as the cup, but not such a big difference for more distant objects such as the mirror to the far right.



When processing images all we're really dealing with are intensities of light - the number of photons hitting each picture element of the sensor. One missing piece of information which would be really useful for matching purposes would also be to know the phase of the light for each pixel (remember that light is both a wave and a "particle"), but unfortunately current imaging technology can't provide this information. When looking at a surface with very little texture (intensity variation), such as a blank wall, it may be that biological vision is exploiting phase detection to see what's really there.