Event-based stereo matching approaches for frameless address event stereo data

Abstract

In this paper we present different approaches of 3D stereo matching for bio-inspired image sensors. In contrast to conventional digital cameras, this image sensor, called Silicon Retina, delivers asynchronous events instead of synchronous intensity or color images. The events represent either an increase (on-event) or a decrease (off-event) of a pixel's intensity. The sensor can provide events with a time resolution of up to 1ms and it operates in a dynamic range of up to 120dB. In this work we use two silicon retina cameras as a stereo sensor setup for 3D reconstruction of the observed scene, as already known from conventional cameras. The polarity, the timestamp, and a history of the events are used for stereo matching. Due to the different information content and data type of the events, in comparison to conventional pixels, standard stereo matching approaches cannot directly be used. Thus, we developed an area-based, an event-image-based, and a time-based approach and evaluated the results achieving promising results for stereo matching based on events. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.