Efficient Block Motion Estimation using Sector Based Approach

This paper suggests a simple scheme in which the search pattern is divided into a number of sectors based on the spatio-temporal correlation information. In the first step five neighboring blocks are searched for finding the predicted motion vector. The predictive motion vector thus obtained is chosen as the initial search center. This predictive search center is found to be closer to the global minimum and thus decreases the effects of the monotonic error surface assumption and its impact on the motion field estimates. Secondly the prediction information is used to obtain the direction of predicted motion vector. Based on the direction of predicted motion vector the search area is divided into four sectors. Final search pattern is adaptive and depends on the sector selected and significantly reduces the computational complexity. Experiments show the speed improvement of the proposed algorithm as compared to other fast search algorithms, in addition the image quality measured in terms of PSNR also shows good results.