A New Motion Estimation Method using Modified Hexagonal Search Algorithm and Lucas-Kanade Optical Flow Technique

Abstract

Block matching methods are one of the most widely used methods in motion estimation and compensation. In this work, we propose a new hybrid block matching motion estimation algorithm based on the Lucas and Kanade method as a distortion criterion to improve the accuracy of estimated motion. The proposed algorithm proceeds in three steps. In the first step, a small hexagonal pattern is used, in order to find the smaller motion vectors and thus fewer searching points. In the second step, the modified large hexagonal pattern is used to identify the direction of motion vectors. In the third step, the small hexagonal search pattern is used to refine the solution search. The proposed algorithm is tested on several both synthetic and real images sequences. The experimental results show that our proposal could achieve good performances in terms of amplitude and angular errors, prediction quality, and computational complexity, compared to some related works.

Keywords

• block matching methods
• computational vision
• hexagonal search algorithm
• lucas and kanade method
• motion estimation