Block-based motion estimation using an enhanced flexible triangle search algorithm

A fast algorithm for block-based motion estimation, the enhanced flexible triangle search (EFTS) algorithm, is presented. This algorithm is based on the general idea of the simplex algorithm and is an enhanced and improved version of the flexible triangle search (FTS) algorithm proposed recently by the authors. The EFTS algorithm was implemented as part of an H.263 encoder and was compared with commonly used block-based motion estimation algorithms. The results obtained indicate that the EFTS reduces significantly the number of matching criterion evaluations per macroblock than all other techniques without any deterioration in the visual quality of the reconstructed video sequence or in the compression ratio