A method for approximate pyramidal search for displacement matching is provided that includes performing a complete window-based search at a coarsest resolution level in a resolution pyramid to determine a best matching point in a destination image for each point in a source image, wherein a displacement from each point to the best matching point is determined, counting, for each displacement of the determined displacements, a number of points having the displacement, selecting displacements from the determined displacements based on the number of points counted for each displacement and a predetermined threshold, and performing a search at the next finer resolution level in the resolution pyramid to determine a best matching point in the destination image for each point in the source image, wherein the search for a best matching point for each point is limited to the selected displacements and a reduced search window around each displacement.