Uniform Full-information Image Matching Using Complex Conjugate Wavelet Pyramids

Stereo image matching is reconsidered from the viewpoint of full-information exploitation via a uniform transformation of information through scale space. We consider the general stereo situation where both interior and relative orientation of two images are unknown. It is shown that wavelet multiresolution analysis provides an adequate transformation and representation of image signal information with desired properties such as good space-frequency locality and information preservation. In particular, complex conjugate wavelets are used for phase-based matching. Technically, this paper presents a basic procedure for top-down matching two stereo images using complex conjuage wavelet pyramids for the standard case where two images may have a lower bound of stereo overlapping of 60% and relative rotation around principal axis is small. A strategy of spiral parallax propagation is developed for tackling the unknown partial correspondence on the top level. A complete example on matching two real aerial images is shown.