Abstract:
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for detecting occluded areas in a video frame. A previous displacement vector field, DVF, is motion compensated (402) and used to provide an occlusion test parameter (404) which is compared to an optimal threshold (408) to detect occluded areas. The optimal threshold is calculated based on the previous DVF and a predetermined threshold (406).
Abstract:
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for detecting occluded areas in a video frame. A previous displacement vector field, DVF, is motion compensated (402) and used to provide an occlusion test parameter (404) which is compared to an optimal threshold (408) to detect occluded areas. The optimal threshold is calculated based on the previous DVF and a predetermined threshold (406).
Abstract:
The present invention provides a method and system for estimating the motion within a video sequence. The invention provides very accurate estimates of both the displacement vector field, as well as, the boundaries of moving objects. The system comprises a preprocessor (102), a spatially adaptive pixel motion estimator (104), a motion boundary estimator (106), and a motion analyzer (108). The preprocessor (102) provides a first estimate of the displacement vector field, and the spatially adaptive pixel motion estimator (104) provides a first estimate of object boundaries. The motion boundary estimator (106) and the motion analyzer (108) improve the accuracy of the first estimates.
Abstract:
A method (100, 200), device (300) and microprocessor (400) are provided for selectively compressing video frames of a motion compensated prediction-based viedo codec based on a predetermined set of compression techniques. An energy estimate of the currrent displaced frame difference, DFD, is used to compute a ratio between the estimate and a historical mean of energy estimates. The ratio is iteratively compared to a predetermined set of thresholds which are associated with the predetermined set of compression techniques. The comparisons are used to choose a technique based on teh thresholds, and a technique is selected to be used for encoding the current DFD.
Abstract:
The present invention provides a method (300) and apparatus (100) for regenerating a dense motion vector field, which describes the motion between two temporally adjacent frames of a video sequence, utilizing a previous dense motion vector field. In this method, a spatial DVF and a temporal DVF are determined (302 and 304) and summed to provide a DVF prediction (306). This method and apparatus enables a dense motion vector field to be used in the encoding and decoding process of a video sequence. This is very important since a dense motion vector field provides a much higher quality prediction of the current frame as compared to the standard block matching motion estimation techniques. The problem to date with utilizing a dense motion vector field is that the information contained in a dense motion field is too large to transmit. The present invention eliminates the need to transmit any motion information.
Abstract:
A device for use with a frame generating portion that is arranged to receive picture data corresponding to a plurality of pictures and to generate encoded video data for transmission across a transmission channel having an available bandwidth. The frame generating portion can generate a frame for each of the plurality of pictures to create a plurality of frames. The encoded video data is based on the received picture data. The device includes a distortion estimating portion and inclusion determining portion and an extracting portion. The distortion estimating portion can estimate a distortion. The inclusion determining portion can establish an inclusion boundary based on the estimated distortion. The extracting portion can extract a frame from the plurality of frames based on the inclusion boundary.
Abstract:
The present invention provides a method and system for estimating the motion within a video sequence. The invention provides very accurate estimates of both the displacement vector field, as well as, the boundaries of moving objects. The system comprises a preprocessor (102), a spatially adaptive pixel motion estimator (104), a motion boundary estimator (106), and a motion analyzer (108). The preprocessor (102) provides a first estimate of the displacement vector field, and the spatially adaptive pixel motion estimator (104) provides a first estimate of object boundaries. The motion boundary estimator (106) and the motion analyzer (108) improve the accuracy of the first estimates.
Abstract:
The present invention provides a method (100, 700), device (400, 800) and microprocessor (500) for performing a computationally efficient iterative expansion of a displaced frame difference, DFD, image over a predetermined dictionary of modulated Gaussian functions for the purposes of video compression. The iterative expansion described in this invention decomposes the DFD image into a set of coefficients which represent the perceptually important areas of a video frame in a compact way. The resulting method, device and microprocessor serve to provide a means for very low bit rate coding/decoding of a video sequence.
Abstract:
The present invention provides a method (200) and an apparatus (100) for spatially adaptive filtering for video encoding. The apparatus filters a video sequence prior the encoding process. The apparatus comprises a noise variance determiner (102), a local variance determiner (104), a noise visibility function determiner (106), a Gaussian kernel determiner (108), and a convolver (110). The apparatus removes noise directly from a Displaced Frame Difference, DFD, signal. This novel approach removes noise and miscellaneous high frequency components from the DFD signal without the introduction of the filtering artifacts characteristic of current techniques. By reducing the miscellaneous high frequency components, the present invention is capable of reducing the amount of information that must be encoded by the video encoder without substantially degrading the decoded video sequence.
Abstract:
The present invention provides a method (600) and system (100) for predicting a differential vector field. The method and system enable the detection and encoding of an area where motion compensating the past image frame to the current image frame, fails. Based on the DFD signal, the present invention detects regions where the motion compensation has failed (102). The boundaries of these regions are encoded and sent to the decoder (104). The intensity values contained in this region, by the current intensity frame, are also encoded and sent to the decoder. Based on the decoded region boundaries, the decoder decodes the intensity values and places them into the correct regions.