Multiplicationless Burt and Adelson´s pyramids for motion estimation

It is shown that, by choosing appropriate values for the parameter a of the generating kernel in constructing P.J. Burt and E.H. Adelson´s pyramid for motion estimation (see IEEE Trans. Commun., vol.31, p.337-45, 1983), one can eliminate the operation of the floating point multiplications needed in such a construction and reduce the computational load to the same order as in the case of the mean pyramid. When a is chosen to be 3/8, it is demonstrated, through simulation studies, that the corresponding Burt and Adelson´s pyramid does not degrade the performance of motion estimation, as compared to that using kernels giving the best performance, and this pyramid also provides perceptually better motion-compensated images than those provided by the mean pyramid.