The Three-Dimensional World
Humans are able to employ 3-D vision with consummate ease, and according to conventional wisdom, binocular vision is the key to this success. But the truth is more complex than this, and this chapter demonstrates why.
• what can be achieved using binocular vision.
• how the shading of surfaces can be used in place of binocular vision to achieve similar ends.
• how these basic methods provide dimensional information for 3-D scenes but do not immediately lead to object recognition.
• how the process of 3-D object recognition can be tackled by studies of 3-D geometry.
Note that this is only an introductory chapter on 3-D vision, designed to give the flavor of the subject and to show its origins in human vision. It will be followed by the other five chapters (Chapter 17 Chapter 21) that comprise Part 3 of this volume.
At a more detailed level, the importance of the epipolar line approach in solving the correspondence problem should be noted. The concept is deservedly taken considerably further in Chapter 21, in conjunction with the required mathematical formulation.