A New Efficient Block-Matching Algorithm for Motion Estimation

This paper presents a new full-search block-matching algorithm: Multi-stage Interval-based Motion Estimation algorithm (MIME). The proposed algorithm is a block based motion estimation algorithm that utilizes successive elimination technique. We define two approximate functions, as the upper and lower boundaries of the interval that includes the Conventional distortion metric SAD. Each stage in the proposed algorithm; except for the last stage; incorporates low resolution pixels for the boundary functions calculations. The final stage is a full resolution block matching stage. MIME has a high probability of finding the optimal motion vector at any stage of the algorithm. The proposed algorithm reduces the computational complexity by successively eliminating non-candidate blocks from the search window at each stage. This computational reduction leads to enhanced performance in terms of low power consumption and fast motion vector estimation. A low power VLSI implementation of the algorithm is also presented in this paper. Simulation results on benchmark video sequences shows that MIME algorithm eliminates almost 88% of the candidate blocks after only two interval based stages.