Patent ID: 8120661

Claim:
A method for digital video image stabilization, the method comprising: estimating, in a processor, from at least one portion of a frame, global frame displacement between an initial reference digital video frame and a current frame in a video sequence of frames; verifying, for the entire frame, validity of said estimated frame displacement; and compensating for said estimated frame displacement by aligning at least one frame in said sequence with respect to said initial reference frame; wherein said step of aligning includes: producing a corrected motion vector for said frame to be aligned; and displacing said frame within the video frames sequence in accordance with said corrected motion vector; wherein the step of estimating global frame displacement comprises: in a full resolution space, calculating a best match of a centric portion of the current frame as a single block of pixels associated with said current frame and said reference frame; wherein said step of calculating the best match of the centric portion comprises calculating an overall fit (L1 norm) by down sampling and then employing a non-linear programming global optimization procedure; wherein said non-linear programming global optimization procedure is selected from the group including Powell method, conjugate gradient method, and Down-Hill Simplex.