Block-matching motion estimation using correlation search algorithm

摘要

Block-matching motion estimation plays an important role in video coding. In general, there exists a high motion correlation between neighbor blocks in spatial and temporal directions. This paper presents a novel motion estimate scheme, called correlation search, which attempts to find the highest motion-correlation neighbor block from the spatial and temporal neighbor blocks. The motion vector of the highest motion-correlation neighbor block is regarded as the motion estimate of the current block. The correlation search scheme can be based on any existing block matching algorithms. When the scheme is based on a full-search algorithm, it achieves almost the same estimate accuracy with a significant reduction of computational complexity. If the scheme is based on a fast search algorithm, it obtains better estimate accuracy in addition to the improvements in computation.