Abstract: An image matching method and system for use with multiple images of a scene captured from different angles. Image matching is performed by identifying a plurality of segments within at least two images, determining an initial disparity values for pixels in the images and then determining initial disparity planes for the segments by fitting a plane to initial disparity values for the segments. A refined disparity plane set is created by iteratively refitting the disparity planes by using various fitting cost functions and weighted linear systems. A labeling of each segment to a disparity plane is made by minimizing a global energy function that includes energy terms for segment to disparity plane matching as well as penalizing disparity plane discontinuities between adjacent image segments.

Abstract: Analysis of video segments based upon the type of motion displayed in the video segments. A video segment is analyzed to determine if it displays a scene that is stationary or has motion. If a video segment displays a scene with motion, then the segment is further analyzed to determine if the motion resulted from camera movement, or if it resulted from movement of the object that was filmed. If the video segment displays a scene with motion created by camera movement, then the video segment is analyzed to determine if the movement was caused by controlled camera movement or unstable camera movement. These categories of video motion may then be used to determine the perceptual importance of the video segment. If the video segments are in a compressed data format, such as the MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 format, the motion displayed in the video segments can be categorized based upon motion vectors in the compressed data.

Abstract: An image matching method and system for use with multiple images of a scene captured from different angles. Image matching is performed by identifying a plurality of segments within at least two images, determining an initial disparity values for pixels in the images and then determining initial disparity planes for the segments by fitting a plane to initial disparity values for the segments. A refined disparity plane set is created by iteratively refitting the disparity planes by using various fitting cost functions and weighted linear systems. A labeling of each segment to a disparity plane is made by minimizing a global energy function that includes energy terms for segment to disparity plane matching as well as penalizing disparity plane discontinuities between adjacent image segments.