1. A method of determining distance to an object disposed within a visual scene, the method comprising: producing a video stream by interleaving images of a first plurality of images and a second plurality of images of the visual scene, individual images of the first and second pluralities of images being provided by respective first and second cameras of a robot, the second camera being separated spatially from the first camera; encoding a plurality of frames from the video stream, the encoded plurality of frames comprising (i) at least one frame encoded with disparity information corresponding to an image of the first plurality of images and an image of the second plurality of images, (ii) at least one frame encoded with motion information corresponding to the image of the second plurality of images and another image of the second plurality of images, and (iii) at least one empty frame that is void with respect to disparity and motion information; evaluating the encoded plurality of frames to determine the distance to the object; evaluating the encoded plurality of frames and the distance to the object to detect a spatio-temporal pattern of movement associated with at least the object; and causing the robot to execute a physical action based on a command signal generated based on the spatio-temporal pattern associated with at least the object.