A motion estimation and image segmentation technique based on the variable block size

We discuss our effort to develop a motion estimation algorithm based on variable block size, which reduces the computational complexity dramatically while maintaining a good picture quality as well as a high compression ratio. A key step in this work is to segment each image frame into different regions using a simple binary-level classifier which performs bit-wise comparison. In the second stage, the motion estimation is performed for every block of variable block size within the changed region with a predetermined maximum search range. The proposed technique has been applied to interframe video coding, and it has been shown that this scheme can be a feasible solution for the low bit rate coding application such as video telephony