Patent ID: 7869518

Claim:
A computer implemented fast motion estimation method comprising: determining whether a sum of absolute differences (SAD) between pixel values of a current block of a current frame and a corresponding matching block of a previous frame is greater than a predefined threshold; performing an initial search when the SAD is greater than the predetermined threshold to find which search point of a current search pattern is the minimal SAD point and to determine whether the minimal SAD point matches the center of the current search pattern; and performing an iteration search when the minimal SAD point differs from the center of the current search pattern to reset the minimal SAD point to be a center of the current search pattern and to set a number of search points and the size of a search pattern based on from current search pattern to a center of the search window of the previous frame, wherein an SAD of a search point monotonously increases as the distance from an optimal motion vector increases, and in the setting of the number of search points, the SAD points that are predictably not the minimal SAD are excluded.