Nonlinear matrix diffusion for optic flow estimation

Abstract

In this paper we present a method for nonlinear diffusion of matrix-valued data. We adapt this technique to the well-known linear structure tensor in order to develop a new nonlinear structure tensor. It is then used to improve the optic flow estimation methods of Lucas and Kanade and its spatio-temporal variant of Bigün et al. Our experiments show that the nonlinear structure tensor leads to a better preservation of discontinuities in the optic flow field. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002.