Region-based video coding using a multiscale image segmentation

This paper proposes a novel region-based video coding technique using a multiscale image segmentation method thus obtaining better quality at the same bit rate. In most of the previous region-based video coding techniques, occlusion caused degradation in terms of both PSNR and perceptual video quality. We propose a new motion estimation and compensation algorithm which solves occlusion related problems effectively. The proposed motion estimation and compensation is a two stage procedure: the first stage uses a coarse motion model while the second stage uses a dense motion model. The coarse motion model generates region level motion vectors which are then fine tuned by the dense motion model which produces pixel level motion vectors. A fusion of these concepts leads to a gain of 2 to approximately 3 dB in PSNR over the block-based algorithm for a variety of test sequences using a fully functional video coder.