A Multi-Pattern Search Algorithm for Block Motion Estimation in Video Coding

In this paper, we propose a novel multi-pattern based search technique, TCon search, for fast block matching motion estimation. It starts with small cross shaped and small triangular shaped patterns. Afterwards, based on the previous step optimal motion vector, the search pattern for next step is selected. Except first and last step, each search step considers only three points thus reducing the number of search points significantly. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed TCon search algorithm performs better than the well-known diamond search (DS) and cross-diamond-hexagonal search (CDHS) algorithms. Compared with the DS algorithm, the proposed TCon search performs up to 2.67 times faster in terms of search point computation and up to 1.67 times faster than CDHS algorithm while comparable quality of reconstructed sequence is maintained.