Coding moving image sequences by segmentation of difference frames and motion-adaptive frame interpolation

Motion-compensated difference frames derived from a moving image sequence are adaptively segmented into regions of constant intensities. Region boundaries are then coded and transmitted together with region intensities. Only alternate frames are coded and transmitted, skipped frames being reproduced at the receiver by motion-adaptive interpolation. The resulting quality of the reconstructed sequence is markedly superior to that obtained when segmentation is applied to the image frames themselves.