Binary pattern based edge detection for motion estimation in H.264/AVC

Many fast algorithms have been developed to tackle the computational intensive motion estimation in a video encoder. In this paper, a binary pattern based edge (BPE) detection algorithm for motion estimation has been proposed. BPE captures the most representative pixels in a block in order of contribution to the distortion function by evaluating whether the individual pixels belong to the edge or background. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperform other existing pixel decimation techniques, reducing by up to 62% the number of matched pixels per block with respect to the conventional N-Queen algorithm while maintaining comparable performance.