THREE-DIMENSIONAL MEASURING DEVICE

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a device for measuring a distance based on position displacement of left and right images, which can robustly determine the position displacement with high accuracy, and minimize a corresponding point search process using topology information that requires complicating processing. SOLUTION: Edges on the left and right images from stereo cameras 3 and 4 are extracted by an edge extraction unit 11. A plurality of similar edges such as edges at an equal distance are grouped by an edge grouping unit 12 to define an edge set, and corresponding regions in the two images are set by a corresponding region setting unit 13. A corresponding region correlating unit 14 extracts edge arrangement information in the regions to compare the information, and calculates a degree of similarity to determine corresponding positions highly accurately at a subpixel unit level with respect to a pair with a high degree of similarity. Based on the result, a distance calculation unit 15 calculates a distance. Accordingly, by evaluating position displacement between edge sets of the left and right images as well as the degree of similarity of edge arrangement, robust and accurate measurement is enabled and the number of regions on which the corresponding point search process is performed is minimized. COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT