The research on 3D motion estimation and structure reconstruction of the object or scene based on the monocular image sequence optical flow is important in computer vision

image processing and pattern recognition

and the research achievements are applied in many fields.such as robot vision

unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) navigation

driver assistance system

medical image analysis

and so on.Firstly

the research progress of the technologies of the monocular image sequence optical flow estimation and 3D reconstruction is reviewed and analyzed from the aspects of accuracy and robustness.Secondly

the test image sequences of Middlebury database are employed to make comparison among the optical flow methods of HS

LDOF

CLG-TV

SOF

AOFSCNN and Classic+NL

and the direct and indirect reconstruction methods of Adiv

RMROF

Sekkati and DMDPOF based on optical flow are compared.Through the comparison results

the advantages and disadvantages of the methods are pointed out

and the characteristics and applications of the methods are generalized.Finally

the limitations and robustness of the models of optical flow estimation and 3D reconstruction in brightness changing

non-rigid motion

motion occlusion and blur are summarized

and the solutions by the fractional order differential model

non-local constraint

stereo vision and depth cue are presented.