<title>Frame-rate conversion based on acceleration and motion-based segmentation</title>

Abstract

Frame rate conversion requires interpolation of image frames at time instances, where the original sequence has not been sampled. This can be done in high quality only by means of motion-compensated algorithms, therefore the knowledge of motion present in the sequence is essential. This motion information has to be determined from the image sequence itself. In this paper a motion-based image segmentation algorithm is proposed, and its application for motion- compensated (MC) frame rate conversion is presented. The segmentation algorithm that can trace multiple rigid objects with translational movement, is based on vector quantization of the estimated motion field determining a set of global motion vectors and segmenting the images into multiple moving areas. Then, the spatial order of the objects (which one is in front of the other) is determined. Interpolation is performed based on the results of the segmentation, the set of motion vectors, and the proper handling of covered and uncovered areas. Furthermore, an accelerated motion model developed previously by the authors is applied, in order to further improve the performance of the MC frame rate converter.