Patent · US Expired

Cell array and method of multiresolution motion estimation and compensation

US6970509B2 · kind B2 · utility

6Cited by
27References
46Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 7, 2001
Grant dateNov 29, 2005
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 18, 2023

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04N5/145
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method, apparatus, computer medium, and other embodiments for motion estimation and compensation processing of video and image signals are described. Within a sequence of frames, block-based differences are taken between frames to exploit redundancies between pictures by taking a matchblock from the current picture and by determining a spatial offset in a corresponding reference picture which signifies a good prediction of where the current macroblock can be found. Multi-level motion estimation is performed in three stages to refine the resolution of the motion vector with reduced computational bandwidth. First, a matchblock from a reference frame is decomposed equally into several sub-matchblocks, each of which is searched in parallel over a search area decomposed into sub-blocks by a similar factor so as to determine a preliminary motion vector in the reference picture. Second, a full size matchblock is then searched over a refined search area using the preliminary motion vector to determine an intermediate motion vector, so as to refine the resolution of the preliminary motion vector. Third, fractional-pixel searching is then performed on the matchblock and the intermediate mo…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.