Object determining apparatus

An object determining apparatus comprising:

• a photographing unit for acquiring image data expressing a plurality of images having disparities by photographing an object from respective different view points;
• a processing unit for computing the disparity of corresponding points on the respective plurality of images on the basis of the image data expressing the plurality of images, and, on the basis of the computed disparity and the position on the image of the disparity points used for computing the disparity, computing the position in real space for the disparity points in terms of a position in a lateral direction, a position in a height direction and a distance from the view point;
• a block determining unit for
• associating information relating to the disparity points from which disparity is computed to respective blocks of a disparity map that is constituted by arranging a plurality of blocks defined such that one side thereof corresponds to the distance, the other side corresponds to the position in the lateral direction, and the lengths of the respective sides are substantially equal to each other, and
• determining first block(s) in which a distribution of the associated disparity points in the distance direction is small and a distribution in the height direction is large, and second block(s) in which the distribution of the associated disparity points in the distance direction is large and the distribution in the height direction is small;
• and
• an attribute applying unit applying an attribute of three dimensional object to the first block(s) and applying an attribute of road surface to the second block(s).