On Discontinuous Optical Flow

Abstract

Retinal image motion and optical flow as its approximation are  fundamental concepts in the field of vision, perceptual and computational. However, the  computation of optical flow remains a challenging problem as image motion  includes discontinuities and multiple values mostly due to scene geometry, surface  translucency and various photometric effects such as surface reflectance. In this  contribution, we analyze image motion in the frequency space with respect to motion  iscontinuities and surface translucence. We derive, under models of constant and  linear optical flow, the frequency structure of motion discontinuities due to occlusion and we demonstrate its various geometrical properties. The aperture  problem is investigated and we show that the information content of an  occlusion almost always disambiguates the velocity of an occluding signal suffering from the aperture problem.