New adaptive pixel decimation for block motion vector estimation

A new adaptive technique based on pixel decimation for the estimation of motion vector is presented. In a traditional approach, a uniform pixel decimation is used. Since part of the pixels in each block do not enter into the matching criterion, this approach limits the accuracy of the motion vector. In this paper, we select the most representative pixels based on image content in each block for the matching criterion. This is due to the fact that high activity in the luminance signal such as edges and texture mainly contributes to the matching criterion. Our approach can compensate the drawback in standard pixel decimation techniques. Computer simulations show that this technique is close to the performance of the exhaustive search with significant computational reduction.