METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GLOBAL-TO-LOCAL BLOCK MOTION ESTIMATION

摘要

Apparatus and a concomitant method for estimating motion vectors having as an input a first image frame (300) and a second image frame (302), each containing a plurality of pixels representing an image. The apparatus comprises: a pyramid processor (102) for decimating a search area (316) within the first image frame (300) to produce a reduced resolution search area (304) and for decimating a block of pixels in the second image frame (302) to produce a reduced resolution pixel block (308); global search system (104) for performing a global search within the reduced resolution search area (310) using the reduced resolution pixel block (308) until the reduced resolution pixel block substantially matches a matching block of pixels in the reduced resolution search area (310); and means (106) for computing an estimated motion vector representing a distance between a location of the reduced resolution pixel block within the second image frame and a location of the matching block of pixels within the first image frame.