Interpolation of cinematic sequences

Presents a new algorithm for interframe interpolation of cinematic sequences. The authors demonstrate its applicability to video data compression of pedestrian traffic and data compression for video conferencing. In both of these applications it is assumed that the background is nearly stationary and that there are no interobject occlusions. The interpolation algorithm makes use of estimates of optical flow to compensate for the motion of objects between two frames. We describe three major problems associated with motion compensated cinematic interpolation: interframe occlusion, interframe zooming and figure-ground ambiguity. Our algorithm suppresses artifacts caused by all three of these problems