Buehler, ChrisGortler, StevenCohen, Michael F.McMillan, Leonard2009-02-252002Buehler, Chris, Steven J. Gortler, Michael F. Cohen, and Leonard McMillan. 2002. Minimal surfaces for stereo. In Proceedings of the Seventh European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), Copenhagen, Denmark, May 28-31, 2002, ed. European Conference on Computer Vision and Anders Heyden, 1-14. Lecture Notes In Computer Science 2352. Berlin: Springer.1611-33490302-9743http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:2634284Determining shape from stereo has often been posed as a global minimization problem. Once formulated, the minimization problems are then solved with a variety of algorithmic approaches. These approaches include techniques such as dynamic programming min-cut and alpha-expansion. In this paper we show how an algorithmic technique that constructs a discrete spatial minimal cost surface can be brought to bear on stereo global minimization problems. This problem can then be reduced to a single min-cut problem. We use this approach to solve a new global minimization problem that naturally arises when solving for three-camera (trinocular) stereo. Our formulation treats the three cameras symmetrically, while imposing a natural occlusion cost and uniqueness constraint.en-US10.1007/3-540-47977-5_58