Low Computational Complexity Variable Block Size (VBS) Partitioning for Motion Estimation Using the Walsh Hadamard Transform (WHT)

Variable block size (VBS) based motion estimation has been adapted in state of the art video coding, such as H.264/AVC, VC-1. However, a low complexity H.264/AVC encoder cannot take advantage of VBS due to its power consumption requirements. In this paper, we present a VBS partition algorithm based on a binary motion edge map without either initial motion estimation or rate-distortion (R-D)optimization for selecting modes. The proposed algorithm uses the Walsh Hadamard transform (WHT) to create a binary edge map, which provides a computational complexity cost effectiveness compared to other light segmentation methods typically used to detect the required region.