Video frame rate up conversion using region based motion compensation

Video frame rate conversion is often recognized as video temporal interpolation. In this paper, a region-based approach to automated video frame rate conversion is presented. The region extraction is performed by spatially dividing the reference video frames. Since this step involves image segmentation, the resulting regions are under or over segmented. Consistent frame to frame region extraction is key to region based motion compensation. We propose a novel inter- and intra-frame region merging technique to compensate for inconsistent frame segmentation problem. The video frame rate is then up converted using the motion compensation and region interpolation between every pair of matching regions. The deformation parameters of the match region pair are estimated based on a non-linear estimation model. Heuristic techniques are used to eliminate overlapped and uncovered areas in the generated frames. Experimental results are presented to evaluate its strength over the popular block matching algorithm (BMA).