Patent ID: 6993077

Claim:
A method for motion estimation in video compression, the method comprising: selecting a plurality of search locations within a single resolutioned search window, the search locations selected according to a predetermined table comprising a first column, a second column, and a plurality of rows, each row in the table specifying a unique search location; generating a match-value for each search location indicating how closely each search location matches a reference block; generating a plurality of level-values based on first dispositional relationships of the search locations and the relative magnitudes of the match-values; generating a preliminary motion vector based on the level-values; generating a plurality of candidate results based on second dispositional relationships of the search locations and the relative magnitudes of the match-values; and generating a final motion vector by altering the preliminary motion vector according to the candidate results as indicated by a predetermined set of formulas; wherein the table is an orthogonal table generated using the statistical model x=μ+A+B+C+D+A×B+A×C+B×C+ε where ε is an error factor, and μ is an average of A, B, C, D, AB, AC, and BC, the orthogonal table having columns A, B, C, and D.