Stereo matching system and method of operating thereof

A method of generating a three-dimensional image, the method comprising:

• receiving a first image from a first camera of a stereo camera, and a second image from a second camera of a stereo camera, wherein the first and second images are of an object taken with different viewing directions, and wherein each of the first image and the second image includes a plurality of W column pixels and a plurality of H row pixels;
• downscaling the first image and the second image by a smoothing filter in a ratio of a downscale factor DF to generate a first downscaled image and a second downscaled image, respectively, so that each of the first image and the second image includes a plurality of W/DF column pixels and the plurality of H row pixels;
• and
• generating an initial cost volume matrix of the first downscaled image and the second downscaled image with an initial disparity set by calculating a cost for an edge pixel of the first downscaled image,
• wherein the initial cost volume matrix has a dimension of H×(W/DF)×dmax, and
• wherein dmax is a maximum initial disparity of the initial disparity set, and
• performing a dynamic program on the initial cost volume matrix to search an initial disparity estimate.

A stereo matching system comprising:

• a smoothing filter receiving a first image and a second image and generating a first downscaled image and a second downscaled image in a ratio of a downscale factor DF;
• an edge detector receiving the first downscaled image and generating an edge map;
• a cost volume matrix generator receiving the first downscaled image and the second downscaled image and generating an initial cost volume matrix, wherein the cost volume matrix generator computes a cost for an edge pixel and assigning a predetermined maximum cost value for a non-edge pixel;
• and
• a disparity estimator receiving the initial cost volume matrix and generating an initial disparity estimate.