Abstract
This paper presents Wide Angle Fovea Disparity Map as a new concept of a disparity map. Wide Angle Fovea Vision Sensor achieves acquiring the input image with both wide field of view and high spatial resolution in in the central field of view simultaneously by a single sensor without increasing the number of image pixels. By applying this special-made vision sensor for the stereo vision system, the authors propose a method to generate the disparity map by which we can not only measure a distance of a vehicle very far away in front of the stereo vision system very accurately (this needs enough high spatial resolution) but also measure that of a bicycle located just aside the vision system by some reasonable accuracy (this needs also enough wide field of view). This unique disparity map has been inspired based on making an efficient use of the Wide Angle Fovea Vision Sensor. In this paper, the authors implemented the proposed method and experimented distance measurement of vehicle and bicycle in outdoor environment by using Wide Angle Fovea Disparity Map. In addition, we considered accuracy of its distance measurement from results, as paying attention to camera calibration problem we should improve for its practical realization in the near future.
