METHOD AND APPARATUS OF PROCESSING IMAGE BASED ON OCCLUSION AREA FILTERING

The present invention relates to a stereo image processing method and, more specifically, to an image processing method for filtering an occlusion area in a stereo image. The method comprises the following steps of: calculating an optical flow based disparity from a stereo image; obtaining feature point based disparity saliency from the stereo image; generating a disparity saliency map based on the calculated optical flow disparity (saliency) and the feature point based disparity saliency; and filtering an occlusion area on the disparity saliency map. In the step of filtering an occlusion area on the disparity saliency map, a disparity is once calculated based on one side of the stereo image and a disparity is calculated again based on the other side of the stereo image. If a difference between two disparities of a particular pixel is greater than a given limit, the particular pixel is detected as an occlusion area pixel, and the disparity value of the particular pixel on the disparity saliency map is corrected to have a minimum value among disparity values between the particular pixel and adjacent pixels. [Reference numerals] (S100) Image input (stereo image); (S110) Optical flow based disparity (saliency); (S120) Feature point based disparity saliency; (S130) Disparity saliency map; (S140) Occlusion area filtering