2525 results about "Motion vector" patented technology

A system and method for improving the coding efficiency of motion vector information in video coding. According to various embodiments, a list of motion vector predictor candidates is arranged according to predefined rules. Each motion vector also has a reference index associated with it. One of the motion vector candidates is then selected as a predictor based on predefined rules, or the selection is explicitly signaled in the bitstream. The reference index associated with the selected motion vector is used as a reference index for the current block. The reference index is predicted along with the motion vector. Such embodiments can improve the compression efficiency of modern video codecs.

To achieve an image encoding apparatus that has extensibility by not limiting an image to be referenced, and that can reduce processing time satisfactorily if the processing of an ordinary frame is skipped, the apparatus of the present invention comprises: motion detecting means for detecting a motion vector for each block of a prescribed size from a reference image and an input image; weighted motion-compensation means for, based on the detected motion vector, extracting from the reference image an area of a prescribed size which is wider than the prescribed block size and which contains an area corresponding to each block of the input image, and for creating a predicted image for the input image by applying a predetermined weight to each of pixels in the wider area and by using the weighted pixels of the wider area; a predicted-image memory for storing the predicted image; encoding means for taking a residual between the stored predicted image and the input image, and for encoding the residual; and decoding means for decoding the encoded image data and thereby obtaining a reference image.

Techniques and tools for encoding and decoding motion vector information for video images are described. For example, a video encoder yields an extended motion vector code by jointly coding, for a set of pixels, a switch code, motion vector information, and a terminal symbol indicating whether subsequent data is encoded for the set of pixels. In another aspect, an encoder/decoder selects motion vector predictors for macroblocks. In another aspect, a video encoder/decoder uses hybrid motion vector prediction. In another aspect, a video encoder/decoder signals a motion vector mode for a predicted image. In another aspect, a video decoder decodes a set of pixels by receiving an extended motion vector code, which reflects joint encoding of motion information together with intra/inter-coding information and a terminal symbol. The decoder determines whether subsequent data exists for the set of pixels based on e.g., the terminal symbol.

Techniques and tools for encoding and decoding video images (e.g., interlaced frames) are described. For example, a video encoder or decoder processes 4:1:1 format macroblocks comprising four 8×8 luminance blocks and four 4×8 chrominance blocks. In another aspect, fields in field-coded macroblocks are coded independently of one another (e.g., by sending encoded blocks in field order). Other aspects include DC/AC prediction techniques and motion vector prediction techniques for interlaced frames.

An improved system and method for providing improved inter-layer prediction for extended spatial scalability in video coding, as well as improving inter-layer prediction for motion vectors in the case of extended spatial scalability. In various embodiments, for the prediction of macroblock mode, the actual reference frame index and motion vectors from the base layer are used in determining if two blocks should be merged. Additionally, multiple representative pixels in a 4×4 block can be used to represent each 4×4 block in a virtual base layer macroblock. The partition and motion vector information for the relevant block in the virtual base layer macroblock can be derived from all of the partition information and motion vectors of those 4×4 blocks.

Conventionally there has been a case that the direct mode cannot be applied effectively depending on the block. With such being the case, information indicating whether a backward reference frame set by default can be utilized in the direct mode is provided to a decoder. A switching procedure to switch to a compensation method applicable when a collocated block has no forward motion vector for effective use, and the compensation method are also provided to the decoder. Thus, it is possible to clearly determine whether the reference frame can be used in the direct mode. Further, when the frame number has no time information, it is possible to effectively send information indicating the relationship between the reference frame and the current frame. Furthermore, the alternative mode and its switching procedure of the present invention make it possible to improve the prediction performance when the direct mode cannot be applied.

A system and method for increasing space or time resolution of an image sequence by combination of a plurality input sources with different space-time resolutions such that the single output displays increased accuracy and clarity without the calculation of motion vectors. This system of enhancement may be used on any optical recording device, including but not limited to digital video, analog video, still pictures of any format and so forth. The present invention includes support for example for such features as single frame resolution increase, combination of a number of still pictures, the option to calibrate spatial or temporal enhancement or any combination thereof, increased video resolution by using high-resolution still cameras as enhancement additions and may optionally be implemented using a camera synchronization method.

A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for video encoding and/or decoding using adaptive interpolation is described. In one embodiment, the decoding method comprises decoding a reference index; decoding a motion vector; selecting a reference frame according to the reference index; selecting a filter according to the reference index; and filtering a set of samples of the reference frame using the filter to obtain the predicted block, wherein the set of samples of the reference frame is determined by the motion vector.

An image processing apparatus includes a motion prediction processor configured to detect a motion vector that indicates inter-image motion between a current image and a reference image; a motion compensation processor configured to perform a motion compensation process for the reference image by using the motion vector and generate a motion compensated image; an addition processor configured to generate a noise reduced image in which noise of the current image is reduced by adding the current image and the motion compensated image; an addition determination unit configured to compute an addition weight in units of pixels of the motion compensated image; a down-sampling processor configured to perform a process for reducing the current image and the motion compensated image; and an up-sampling processor configured to perform a process for expanding an addition coefficient map that is an output of the addition determination unit.

A system, method and computer program tangibly embodied in a memory medium for implementing motion skip and single-loop decoding for multi-view video coding. In various embodiments, a more efficient motion skip is used for the current JMVM arrangement by 8×8 or 4×4 pel disparity motion vector accuracy, while maintaining the motion compensation process that is compliant with the H.264/AVC design regarding hierarchical macroblock partitioning. Adaptive referencing merging may be used in order achieve a more accurate motion skip from one inter-view reference picture. In order to indicate whether a picture is to be used for motion skip, a new syntax element or syntax modification in the NAL unit header may be used.

A depth image coding method may calculate a depth offset of a depth image, may generate a prediction mode based on the depth offset, may minimize a prediction error of the depth image having a low correlation between adjacent points of view and a low temporal correlation and may enhance a compression rate. The depth offset may be calculated based on a representative value of adjacent pixels included in a template as opposed to using a depth representative value of pixels in a block and header information may not be needed to encode an offset and the offset may be generated by a depth image decoding apparatus. When a plurality of objects is included in a block, a depth offset is calculated for each of the plurality of objects and a motion vector is calculated for each of the plurality of objects and the depth image may be accurately predicted.

The invention discloses a motion vector forecasting method in a resolution quantizing structure, wherein, forecasting motion vectors of macro blocks in enhancement layers are acquired by utilization of relativity of motion vectors of a time domain, a space domain and an interlayer domain. The realization process is that: on the time domain, candidate motion vectors of the time domain are acquired from motion vectors of macro blocks with the same position with the prior frame; on the space domain, candidate motion vectors of the space domain are acquired from motion vectors of adjacent blocks; on the interlayer domain, candidate motion vectors of the interlayer domain are acquired from corresponding motion vectors with low space domain resolution hierarchy; candidate motion vectors with minimum motion estimation cost are selected to be forecasting motion vectors by selection among the candidate motion vectors of the time domain, the space domain and the interlayer domain. The invention has the advantages of capability of acquiring more accurate forecasting motion vectors, capability of compressing code rate of motion vectors, and obtaining of performance gain.

In a transcoder means are provided for implementing a simultaneous change in rate and in resolution. In a preferred embodiment means are also provided for transferring incoming motion vectors or the like directly to the output encoder. The transcoder architecture is both suited for implementation in the spatial as well as in the frequency domain.

Provided are a method and apparatus for estimating a motion vector using a plurality of motion vector predictors, an encoder, a decoder, and a decoding method. The method includes calculating spatial similarities between the current block and the plurality of neighboring partitions around the current block, selecting at least one of the neighboring partitions based on the calculated spatial similarities, and estimating a motion vector of the selected partition as the motion vector of the current block.

An apparatus and method for detection of abnormal motion in video stream, comprising a training phase for defining normal motion and a detection phase for detecting abnormal motions in the video stream. Motion is detected according to motion vectors and motion features extracted from video frames.

Transcoding is achieved by decoding a received video signal which has been coded according to a first coding scheme employing motion compensation and carries coded data and motion compensation information, and encoding the decoded according to a second coding scheme also employing motion compensation. Estimated motion vectors are generated for a current frame of the video signal, using vectors which, in the received signal, accompanying at least one other frame of the video signal. These may be used directly or used to define a search area for motion estimation.

Techniques and tools for encoding and decoding predicted images in interlaced video are described. For example, a video encoder or decoder computes a motion vector predictor for a motion vector for a portion (e.g., a block or macroblock) of an interlaced P-field, including selecting between using a same polarity or opposite polarity motion vector predictor for the portion. The encoder/decoder processes the motion vector based at least in part on the motion vector predictor computed for the motion vector. The processing can comprise computing a motion vector differential between the motion vector and the motion vector predictor during encoding and reconstructing the motion vector from a motion vector differential and the motion vector predictor during decoding. The selecting can be based at least in part on a count of opposite polarity motion vectors for a neighborhood around the portion and/or a count of same polarity motion vectors.

An image signal is input from an image input unit and is divided into different spatial frequency bands by applying a discrete wavelet transform thereto using a discrete wavelet transformation unit. On the basis of values of spatial frequency components, a region-of-interest extracts a region of interest by obtaining a distribution of motion vectors in the input image. A quantization unit applies quantization processing to the extracted region of interest and different quantization processing to other regions, and an encoder encodes the quantized image signal. Alternatively, motion of an image contained in the input image may be detected and the region of interest may be obtained based upon motion of this image.

The present invention relates to a video coding method. Specifically, the invention relates to motion vector (MV) coding, wherein the MV coding is based on edge matching or adaptive template matching, namely the motion vector coding based on boundary matching (MVCBM) and the motion vector coding based on adaptive template matching (MVCATM). Generally speaking, the invention limits a prediction candidate set, wherein a predictor adaptively changes based on the current distribution of the adjacent MV. Subsequently, a matching technique (boundary matching in MVCBM and adaptive template matching in MVCATM) is used for reducing the number of the prediction and reducing the number of bits used by indexing. Afterwards, an optimal motion vector predicator is selected from the reduced concentrated predictor. The guessing strategy based on the least MVD standard further saves the number of indexing bits.

An imaging device and methods of stabilizing video captured using a rolling shutter operation. Motion estimation is used to determine a row motion vector for individual rows of a current frame of a pixel array. The row motion vectors are used to map the location of pixels in the current frame to a mapped frame representing a single acquisition time for the current frame.

Embodiments include a motion estimation method performed in a parallel processing system that determines a list of several candidate motion vectors for a macroblock of a video image and retains them through multiple computation passes. All candidate motion vectors are used as potential neighboring predictors, so that the best combination of differential vectors rises to the top of the candidate list. Numerous combinations of differential motion vectors are considered during the process that compares motion vectors among up to eight neighboring macroblocks, instead of simply between pairs of macroblocks. The motion estimation system is configured to use a large number of compute engines, such as on a highly parallel GPU platform. This is achieved by having no dependencies between macroblocks except one per pass. This allows the number of calculations per pass to be very large.

Method, video encoders, and digital systems are provide in which motion vector determination includes selecting a plurality of candidate motion vectors for a macroblock using a cost function including both a block distortion measure and a motion vector cost measure for single-partition motion vectors in the plurality of candidate motion vectors and using a cost function including a distortion measure without a motion vector cost measure for multi-partition motion vectors in the plurality of candidate motion vectors, and refining the plurality of candidate motion vectors to obtain a refined plurality of candidate motion vectors, wherein multi-partition motion vectors of the plurality of candidate motion vectors are refined using a cost function including a distortion measure without a motion vector cost measure and single-partition motion vectors of the plurality of candidate motion vectors are refined using a cost function including both a block distortion measure and a motion vector cost measure.

Video coding efficiency is improved by jointly coding the x and y components of motion vectors with a single variable length code. The motion vector components for a block of pixels are predicted based on motion vectors of neighboring blocks of pixels. The predicted x and y components are then jointly coded by assigning a single variable length code corresponding to the pair of components, rather than a separate code for each component. If the x and y components do not have a corresponding entry in the coding table, they are coded with an escape code followed by fixed length codes.

An estimated total camera motion between temporally proximate image frames is computed. A desired component of the estimated total camera motion is determined including distinguishing an undesired component of the estimated total camera motion, and including characterizing vector values of motion between the image frames. A counter is incremented for each pixel group having a summed luminance that is greater than a threshold. A counter may be decremented for pixels that are under a second threshold, or a zero bit may be applied to pixels below a single threshold. The threshold or thresholds is/are determined based on a dynamic luminance range of the sequence. The desired camera motion is computed including representing the vector values based on final values of counts for the image frames. A corrected image sequence is generated including the desired component of the estimated total camera motion, and excluding the undesired component.

A genus of motion estimation processes is disclosed which is characterized by the following characteristics which all species in the genus will share 1) a process within this genus does not perform the motion estimation separately for each of the partitions and subpartitions defined in the H.264 standard; 2) a process within the genus computes for each motion vector in the search region the partial costs for all macroblock partitions and sub-partitions, compares them to the best partial costs found so far, and for partitions and sub-partitions having lower costs updates the corresponding best partial costs and records the current motion vectors as the one realizing them. 3) a process within the genus after finishing scanning the motion vectors in the search region, computes from the best partial costs the total costs for all possible macroblock partitioning modes and selects the one with the lowest total cost as the best macroblock partitioning mode, with the best motion vectors corresponding to each of the selected macroblock partitions and sub-partitions.

The picture coding apparatus (300) includes a motion vector estimation unit (302) that select one of methods for deriving a motion vector of a block to be motion-compensated, depending on a motion vector of a block located in a corner of a decoded macroblock among a group of blocks that compose the decoded macroblock corresponding to the current macroblock to be coded and determines the motion vector derived by the selected method for derivation to be a candidate of the motion vector of the current macroblock to be coded and a motion compensation unit (303) that generates a predictive image of the block to be motion-compensated based on the estimated motion vector.

The present invention includes the following steps: a step of generating a first motion vector candidate MVC1 based on a reference frame Rf1 and a second motion vector candidate MVC2 based on a second reference frame Rf2 (S300); a step of generating an interpolation predictive block PB0 by performing interpolation on each pixel value of each pixel in a block PB1 for prediction, indicated by the first motion vector candidate MVC1 and each pixel value of each pixel in a block PB2 for prediction indicated by the second motion vector candidate MVC2 (S302, S304); a step of calculating a prediction error evaluation value based on a differential between each pixel value in the interpolation predictive block PB0 and each pixel value in a current block to be coded (S306~S310); and a step of estimating, for the current block, the first motion vector candidate MVC1 and the second motion vector candidate MVC2, based on which the smallest prediction error evaluation value is obtained, respectively as a motion vector MV1 and a motion vector MV2 (S312, S314).

Techniques and tools for using motion vector block patterns in video encoding and decoding are described. In general, a motion vector block pattern signals the presence or absence of motion vector data for a macroblock with multiple motion vectors. For example, a video decoder decodes variable length codes that represent motion vector block patterns. Each motion vector block pattern has one bit per corresponding luminance motion vector of a macroblock with multiple luminance motion vectors, where the one bit indicates whether or not motion vector data for the corresponding luminance motion vector is signaled. A video encoder performs corresponding encoding.

A method of and apparatus for encoding and decoding an image are provided. According to the method and apparatus, a virtual motion vector is assigned to a block which is encoded in intra prediction mode, and when a motion vector of a block which is encoded in inter prediction mode after the intra block is decoded, the virtual motion vector assigned to the intra block is used.

Joint coding of depth map video and texture video is provided, where a motion vector for a texture video is predicted from a respective motion vector of a depth map video or vice versa. For scalable video coding, depth map video is coded as a base layer and texture video is coded as an enhancement layer(s). Inter-layer motion prediction predicts motion in texture video from motion in depth map video. With more than one view in a bit stream (for multi view coding), depth map videos are considered monochromatic camera views and are predicted from each other. If joint multi-view video model coding tools are allowed, inter-view motion skip issued to predict motion vectors of texture images from depth map images. Furthermore, scalable multi-view coding is utilized, where interview prediction is applied between views in the same dependency layer, and inter-layer (motion) prediction is applied between layers in the same view.