Multi-Path Adaptive Computation-Aware Search Strategy for Block-Based Motion Estimation

Ability to work in a computation-limited and computation-variant environment described as "computational awareness" is a desirable feature of a realtime motion estimation system. In this paper, a new multi-path computation-aware algorithm is proposed. One-pass scheme presented in the prior work by Chen et al., considers only one candidate point which is the median of neighboring motion vectors (MVs). However, when computational resources are abundant, it is possible to investigate more search paths around points from the prediction set and get a significant improvement both in terms of quality and utilization of available search points (SPs). Also other enhancements are introduced regarding the way of selection of the starting SP and the search strategy, and allocation of resources. These enhancements lead to higher PSNR and a better utilization of computational resources.