Patent ID: 7120276

Claim:
A method of processing image data of a plurality of time-separated images of a body to detect non-rigid movement of the body, comprising the steps of: for each of a plurality of sampling points in each image, calculating and storing a plurality of candidate movements together with the estimated probability of each candidate; recalculating for each sampling point the probability of each of the candidate movements based on the stored probability of that candidate movement and the probabilities of the candidate movements at adjacent sampling points; and generating from the recalculated probabilities a motion field indicative of the non-rigid movement, wherein said step of recalculating comprises: iteratively selecting each of a plurality of surrounding motion probabilities from the stored probabilities of candidate movements for each of a plurality of the adjacent sampling points, said selection at each adjacent sampling point being performed on the basis of the stored probabilities for that sampling point, and recalculating the probability based on the stored probability of that candidate movement and said plurality of surrounding motion probabilities.