Segmentation and Free Space Detection Using Gabor Filters

This paper proposes a new segmentation method and applies it for detecting free space, which is defined as a free road area without any obstacle. The problem is important for an intelligent transportation control or collision adoidance in vehicles, and also important for assisting the blind pedestrian. In this paper, the texture analysis is carried out using Gabor filters. Input images are segmented with not only the outputs of Gabor filters, but also both edge and color information. A free space is extracted from the segmented image. Then, the three-dimensional (3-D) information such as a free path at arbitrary direction from the observer is computed by stereo method. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of this proposed method, experimental results are shown for real images consisting of outdoor and indoor scenes.