Intelligent robots need intelligent vision: visual 3D perception

In this paper, we investigate the possibilities of stereo and structure from motion approaches. It is not the aim to compare both theories of depth reconstruction with the goal of designating a winner and a loser. Both methods are capable of providing sparse as well as dense 3D reconstructions and both approaches have their merits and defects. The thorough, year-long research in the field indicates that accurate depth perception requires a combination of methods rather than a sole one. In fact, cognitive research has shown that the human brain uses no less than 12 different cues to estimate depth. Therefore, we also finally introduce in a following section a methodology to integrate stereo and structure from motion.