Patent ID: 6782052
Filing Date: 2004-08-24
Classification: G06T,H04N

Abstract:
In a digital video system where a video sequence is represented by a series of frames, including a current frame and multiple previous reference frames positioned rearwardly in time with respect to said current frame, each separated by a predetermined time interval, the frames being divided into a plurality of blocks with predetermined positions, with each block including a predetermined matrix of pixel data, a method of efficiently estimating a change in position of an image represented by a matrix of pixel data in an image block in the current frame from corresponding matrices of pixel data in a previous frame of said series of reference frames, by determining the location of an optimal reference block within said series of reference frames, wherein said optimal reference block corresponds to said image block, the method comprising the steps of:selecting an image block in the current frame; selecting a number of reference frames; selecting a number of blocks adjacent to said image block in the current frame; selecting a value for an addition factor; for each of said selected blocks adjacent to said image block in the current frame, determining a reference image block in one of said number of reference frames; calculating a subset of frames of said number of reference frames in which to search for said optimal reference block, wherein said subset of frames comprises multiple frames positioned rearwardly in time from said current frame, wherein the calculation comprises choosing the minimum of either the number of reference frames minus one, or the addition factor plus the maximum of the number of frames counted rearwardly in time from said current frame to reach the frame containing the reference image block in said one of said number of reference frames for each of said reference image blocks; and searching the subset of frames for said optimal reference block.