Patent ID: 6618439
Filing Date: 2003-09-09
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
A method of block-based motion-compensated interpolation of a video signal based on blockwise motion vectors and frame information of a plurality of frames being provided by a block-based video decoder, said method comprising:(a) performing a segmentation operation on said plurality of frames of said video signal to identify an initial moving object block and background information blocks, wherein said background information blocks are identified as a stationary block (SB), an uncovered block (UB), and a covered block (CB), (b) mapping a motion vector of one of said blockwise motion vectors to provide an output of a mapped moving object block (MO) whose pixels each have said motion vector mapped thereto, (c) classifying said mapped moving object block (MO) obtained in step (b) and said background information blocks obtained in step (a) to identify an interpolated mapped moving object block (Moti) and interpolated background information blocks including an interpolated stationary block (SBti), an interpolated uncovered block (UBti), and an interpolated covered block (CBti), and (d) processing Moti, SBti, UBti, CBti and said frame information from said plurality of frames to generate an interpolated frame relative to said one of said frames, wherein the segmentation operation further comprises: (i) performing a morphological closure operation by removing holes in said initial moving object block to obtain a morphologically closed segmented moving object block, (ii) performing pattern block refinement by comparing said morphologically closed segmented moving object block obtained in step (i) with a plurality of pattern blocks, and obtaining a pattern block having a closest matching pattern to said morphologically closed segmented moving object block, and (iii) replacing said morphologically closed segmented moving object with said pattern block selected in step (ii).