Block-based motion vector smoothing for periodic pattern region

Abstract

When finding true motion vectors in video sequences, multiple local minima areas such as periodic pattern cause severe motion errors. There have been efforts to reduce motion errors in the region, where they use exhaustive full-search motion estimation scheme to analyze or find a solution for the region. To find robust motion vectors in the periodic pattern region using non-exhaustive motion estimator, we propose a recursive motion vector smoothing method. Recursively averaged vectors are used for periodic pattern region and the input vectors from a conventional search method are used for other regions, controlled by a weighting parameter. Properties of periodic pattern is considered in calculating the parameter to adaptively weight on the input or the mean vectors. Experimental results show motion vector improvements in the periodic pattern region with the input vectors from non-exhaustive search method. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.