A new cross-diamond search algorithm for fast block motion estimation

In block motion estimation, search patterns have a large impact on the searching speed and quality of performance. Based on motion vector distribution characteristics of real world video sequences, we propose a new cross-diamond search algorithm (NCDS) using cross-search patterns before large/small diamond search patterns in this paper. NCDS employs halfway technique to achieve significant speedup on sequence with (quasi-) stationary blocks. NCDS employs Modified Partial Distortion Criterion (MPDC), which results in fewer search points with similar distortion. Experimental results show that the improvements of NCDS over CDS can be up to a 16% gain on speedup while similar prediction accuracy is maintained, and NCDS provides faster searching speed and smaller distortions than other popular fast block-matching algorithms.