• ETRI Journal
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.369-378
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• 2012

In this paper, we propose new adaptive search range motion estimation methods where the search ranges are constrained by the probabilities of motion vector differences and a search point sampling technique is applied to the constrained search ranges. Our new methods are based on our previous work, in which the search ranges were analytically determined by the probabilities. Since the proposed adaptive search range motion estimation methods effectively restrict the search ranges instead of search point sampling patterns, they provide a very flexible and hardware-friendly approach in motion estimation. The proposed methods were evaluated and tested with JM16.2 of the H.264/AVC video coding standard. Experiment results exhibit that with negligible degradation in PSNR, the proposed methods considerably reduce the computational complexity in comparison with the conventional methods. In particular, the combined method provides performance similar to that of the hybrid unsymmetrical-cross multi-hexagon-grid search method and outstanding merits in hardware implementation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics B
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• v.31B no.8
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• pp.129-136
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• 1994

In this paper an adaptive moving method of the search region tracking the motion is proposed. The search region in BMA is determined by the capability of hardware implementation and the degree of motion. But once determined nothing can be changed during coding procedure. In this paper we predict the level of motion of the current block using motion vectors of previous frames without overhead information and change the location of the search region according to the level of the motion predicted. In short the proposed method can be archieved the dsirable effect such that the size of search region gets large when the motion is large. Results of experiments show that prediction efficiency has been improved by using adaptive moving method resulting in reduced prediction error in the blocks with large motion.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.1109-1122
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• 1996

Generally, moving images contain the various components in motions, which reange from a static object and background to a fast moving object. To extract the accurate motion parameters, we must consider the various motions. That requires a wide search egion in motion estimation. The wide search, however, causes a high computational complexity. If we have a few knowledge about the motion direction and magnitude before motion estimation, we can determine the search location and search window size using the already-known information about the motion. In this paper, we present a local adaptive motion estimation approach that predicts a block motion based on spatio-temporal neighborhood blocks and adaptively defines the search location and search window size. This paper presents a technique for reducing computational complexity, while having high accuracy in motion estimation. The proposed algorithm is introduced the forward and backward projection techniques. The search windeo size for a block is adaptively determined by previous motion vectors and prediction errors. Simulations show significant improvements in the qualities of the motion compensated images and in the reduction of the computational complexity.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Industrial Systems Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.318-324
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• 2001

In this paper we propose the adaptive scheme to place more search points as long as the operation tapability of the motion estimator in the video codec permits. And the proposed algorithm takes advantage of the intuitive fact that the quality of the decoded video is more degraded as the spatial frequency of the corresponding block is increased due to the augmentation of local minima per unit area. Thererore, we propose the scheme to enhance the quality by locating relatively more search points in the block with high frequency components by analyzing the spatial frequencies of the video sequence. As a result, the proposed scheme can adaptively place more search points possibly permitted by the motion estimator and guarantees better quality compared to the TSS and FS.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.1187-1192
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• 2008

This paper proposes a fast motion estimation using an adaptive search region and a new three step search. The proposed method improved in the quality of motion compensation image as $0.43dB{\sim}2.19dB$, according as it predict motion of current block from motion vector of neigher blocks, and adaptively set up search region using predicted motion information. We show that the proposed method applied a new three step search pattern is able to fast motion estimation, according as it reduce computational complexity per blocks as $1.3%{\sim}1.9%$ than conventional method.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2000.06d
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• pp.43-46
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• 2000

In this paper, we propose a fast adaptive diamond search algorithm(FADS) for block matching motion estimation. Fast motion estimation algorithms reduce the computational complexity by using the UESA (Unimodal Error Search Assumption) that the matching error monotonically increases as the search moves away from the global minimum error. Recently many fast BMAs(Block Matching Algorithms) make use of the fact that the global minimum points in real world video sequences are centered at the position of zero motion. But these BMAs, especially in large motion, are easily trapped into the local minima and result in poor matching accuracy. So, we propose a new motion estimation algorithm using the spatial correlation among the adjacent blocks. We change the origin of search window according to the spatially adjacent motion vectors and their MAE(Mean Absolute Error). The computer simulation shows that the proposed algorithm has almost the same computational complexity with UCBDS(Unrestricted Center-Biased Diamond Search)〔1〕, but enhance PSNR. Moreover, the proposed algorithm gives almost the same PSNR as that of FS(Full Search), even for the large motion case, with half the computational load.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.441-449
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• 2007

In video coding, motion estimation is a process to estimate the pixel of the current frame from the reference frame, which affects directly the predictive quality and the encoding time. This paper is related to AHHS(Adaptive Hierarchical Hexagon Search) using spatio-temporal motion activity for fast motion estimation. The proposed method defines the spatio-temporal motion activity of the current macroblock using the motion vectors of its spatio-temporally adjacent macroblocks, and then conventional AHS(Adaptive Hexagon Search) is performed if the spatio-temporal motion activity is lower, otherwise, hierarchical hexagon search is performed on a multi-layered hierarchical space constructed by multiple sub-images with low frequency in wavelet transform. 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 quality and the computational time. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method is both suitable for (quasi-) stationary and large motion searches. The proposed method could keep the merit of the adaptive hexagon search capable of fast estimating motion vectors and also adaptively reduce the local minima occurred in the video sequences with higher spatio-temporal motion activity.

• Journal of The Institute of Information and Telecommunication Facilities Engineering
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.53-61
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• 2011

This research presents an adaptive fast motion estimation (ME) computation on the stage of uneven multi-hexagon grid search (UMHGS) algorithm included in an unsymmetrical-cross multi-hexagon-grid search (UMHexagonS) in H.264 standard. The proposed adaptive method is based on statistical analysis and previously obtained motion vectors to reduce the computational complexity of ME. For this purpose, the algorithm is decomposed into three processes: skipping, terminating, and reducing search areas. Skipping and terminating are determined by the statistical analysis of the collected minimum SAD (sum of absolute difference) and the search area is constrained by the slope of previously obtained motion vectors. Simulation results show that 13%-23% of ME time can be reduced compared with UMHexagonS, while still maintaining a reasonable PSNR (peak signal-to-noise ratio) and average bitrates.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.372-378
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• 2010

This paper propose the fast motion estimation algorithm with adaptive search range adjustment using motion activities of temporal and spatial neighbor blocks. The existing fast motion estimation algorithms with adaptive search range adjustment use the maximum motion vector of all blocks in the reference frame. So these algorithms may not control a optimum search range for slow moving block in current frame. The proposed algorithm use the maximum motion vector of neighbor blocks in the reference frame to control a optimum search range for slow moving block. So the proposed algorithm can reduce computation time for motion estimation. The experiment results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the number of search points about 15% more than Simple Dynamic Search Range(SDSR) algorithm while maintaining almost the same bit-rate and motion estimation error.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2000.07b
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• pp.843-846
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• 2000

An optical flow-based motion estimation algorithm is proposed for video coding. The algorithm uses block-matching motion estimation with an adaptive search region. The search region is computed from motion fields that are estimated based on the optical flow. The algorithm is based on the fact that true block-motion vectors have similar characteristics to optical flow vectors. Thereafter, the search region is computed using these optical flow vectors that include spatial relationships. In conventional block matching, the search region is fixed. In contrast, in the new method, the appropriate size and location of the search region are both decided by the proposed algorithm. The results obtained using test images show that the proposed algorithm can produce a significant improvement compared with previous block-matching algorithms.