Methods of and units for motion or depth estimation and image processing apparatus provided with such motion estimation unit

摘要

In the method of motion estimation a tree ( 120 ) of segments ( 102-114 ) of an image ( 100 ) is generated by performing a hierarchical segmentation. The tree ( 120 ) of segments is analyzed to control the generation of a set ( 118 ) of candidate motion vectors of a segment ( 104 ). For the motion vectors of the set ( 118 ) match penalties are calculated. Finally, a particular motion vector ( 116 ) is selected from the set ( 118 ) of candidate motion vectors on the basis of match penalties. In the method of depth estimation depth data is calculated on the basis of a motion vector and the rules of parallax.