US Patent 11703323 Multi-channel depth estimation using census transforms

A depth estimation system is described capable of determining depth information using two images from two cameras. A first camera captures a first image and a second camera captures a second image, both images including a plurality of light channels. A scan direction is selected from a plurality of scan directions. For the selected scan direction, along each of a plurality of scanlines, the system compares pixels from the first image to pixels from the second image. The comparison is based on calculating a census transform for each pixel in the first image and a census transform for each pixel in the second image. This comparison is used to determine a stereo correspondence between the pixels in the first image and the pixels in the second image. The system generates a depth map based on the stereo correspondence.