The resolution of ambiguous stereoscopic matches by interpolation

Matching in stereograms made of horizontal rows of points can be described as follows: characteristic features, such as edges and gaps in the rows, have unambiguous matches in the two eyes, and these features are matched first. A plane interpolated between the positions in depth assigned to these features then guides the matching in the intervening sets of regularly spaced points which have potentially ambiguous matches. The intervening points are matched so that their disparity with respect to this interpolation plane is minimized. The "nearest disparity" rule describes matching for tilted interpolation planes as well as for fronto-parallel planes. While it is possible to construct stereograms which violate these matching rules, the rules work remarkably well in describing typical matching behaviour for many patterns.