Development of stereo matching algorithm based on sum of absolute RGB color differences and gradient matching

This article presents local-based stereo matching algorithm which comprises a development of an algorithm using block matching and two edge preserving filters in the framework. Fundamentally, the matching process consists of several stages which will produce the disparity or depth map. The problem and most challenging work for matching process is to get an accurate corresponding point between two images. Hence, this article proposes an algorithm for stereo matching using improved Sum of Absolute RGB Differences (SAD), gradient matching and edge preserving filters. It is Bilateral Filter (BF) to surge up the accuracy. The SAD and gradient matching will be implemented at the first stage to get the preliminary corresponding result, then the BF works as an edge-preserving filter to remove the noise from the first stage. The second BF is used at the last stage to improve final disparity map and increase the object boundaries. The experimental analysis and validation are using the Middlebury standard benchmarking evaluation system. Based on the results, the proposed work is capable to increase the accuracy and to preserve the object edges. To make the proposed work more reliable with current available methods, the quantitative measurement has been made to compare with other existing methods and it shows the proposed work in this article perform much better.