In this paper, a hierarchical motion estimation algorithm using a binary pyramid (HMEBP) with 3-scale tilings is proposed. In the HMEBP scheme, motion estimation is performed using three block sizes in the real domain at the topmost layer. At the intermediate layers, each candidate motion vector is refined in the binary domain at three different scales and the best motion vector from each scale is propagated to the next layer for further refinement. At the lowest layer, one motion vector is selected for refinement for each macroblock based on minimizing the motion-compensated predicted error. The proposed technique reduces computational complexity greatly compared with the full search because motion estimation in the binary domain only involves Boolean logic operations. This results in a substantial reduction in hardware complexity. Simulations on three MPEG sequences show the performance of the HMEBP is comparable with the full search.
展开▼
