Robust parametric motion estimation for image mosaicing in the MPEG-7 standard

A robust parametric motion estimation algorithm is presented. The algorithm is an extension of the 4-2-1 pixel hierarchical search used in previous MPEG-7 Visual eXperimental Model (XM) algorithm of the MPEG-7 standard. A refined version of the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm is used in a hierarchical coarser-to-fine scale-space that makes sure that optimization is done in steps that always decrease the displacement and avoids local minimizers. The application of the algorithm in image mosaic construction is shown, demonstrating the ability of the algorithm to handle frames with large transitions. The algorithm was accepted for inclusion in the latest MPEG-7 Visual XM and Multimedia Description Schemes XM