• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.305-315
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• 2008

Pre-proposed AHHS(Adaptive Hierarchical Hexagon Search) is a kind of the fast hierarchical block matching algorithm based on the AHS(Adaptive Hexagon Search). It is characterized as keeping the merits of the AHS capable of fast estimating motion vectors and also adaptively reducing the local minima often occurred in the video sequences with higher spatio-temporal motion activity. The objective of this paper is to propose the method effectively extending the horizontal biased pattern and the vertical biased pattern of the AHHS to improve its predictive image quality. In the paper, based on computer simulation results for multiple video sequences with different motion characteristics, the performance of the proposed method was analysed and assessed in terms of the predictive image quality and the computational time. The simulation results indicated that the proposed method was both suitable for (quasi-) stationary and large motion searches. While the proposed method increased the computational load on the process extending the hexagon search patterns, it could improve the predictive image quality so as to cancel out the increase of the computational load.