Evaluation of Cost Functions for Stereo Matching

Stereo correspondence methods rely on matching costs for computing the similarity of image locations. In this paper we evaluate the insensitivity of different matching costs with respect to radiometric variations of the input images. We consider both pixel-based and window-based variants and measure their performance in the presence of global intensity changes (e.g., due to gain and exposure differences), local intensity changes (e.g., due to vignetting, non-Lambertian surfaces, and varying lighting), and noise. Using existing stereo datasets with ground-truth disparities as well as six new datasets taken under controlled changes of exposure and lighting, we evaluate the different costs with a local, a semi-global, and a global stereo method.