Estimating optimal parameters for MRF stereo from a single image pair

This paper presents a novel approach for estimating the parameters for MRF-based stereo algorithms. This approach is based on a new formulation of stereo as a maximum a posterior (MAP) problem in which both a disparity map and MRF parameters are estimated from the stereo pair itself. We present an iterative algorithm for the MAP estimation that alternates between estimating the parameters while fixing the disparity map and estimating the disparity map while fixing the parameters. The estimated parameters include robust truncation thresholds for both data and neighborhood terms, as well as a regularization weight. The regularization weight can be either a constant for the whole image or spatially-varying, depending on local intensity gradients. In the latter case, the weights for intensity gradients are also estimated. Our approach works as a wrapper for existing stereo algorithms based on graph cuts or belief propagation, automatically tuning their parameters to improve performance without requiring the stereo code to be modified. Experiments demonstrate that our approach moves a baseline belief propagation stereo algorithm up six slots in the Middlebury rankings.