APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR THE COMPRESSION OF IMAGE DATA

摘要

Apparatus and method for the compression of three-dimensional image data derived from different perspectives of an object field. The data is arranged in a perspective array having at least two dimensions with respective axes, a first dimension representing distance across the object field and a second dimension representing perspective of the object field. Points in the object field provide corresponding loci in the perspective array. Each locus and its skew with respect to the axis of the perspective dimension is found by correlating the associated image data. The skew provides a measure of the range or depth of the related point in the object field. The invention has applications in machine vision for robots and collision avoidance. It may also be applied to data compression for transmission of three-dimensional images and to the manipulation of such images.