Linear search applied to global motion estimation

Gradient-based algorithms for global motion estimation are effective in many image-processing tasks. However, when analytical estimation of derivatives of objective function is not possible, linear search based algorithms such as Powell perform better than the gradient-based ones. In this paper we propose global motion estimation algorithm that exploits linear search based algorithm, particularly Powell, instead of commonly used gradient-based one. We also introduce a new approach for extracting global motion parameters called Two Step Powell-based GME. Using this approach we further improve the Powell-based GME. The proposed Powell-based GME outperforms Gauss–Newton algorithm (gradient-based) in terms of PSNR. The proposed Two Step Powell GME algorithm outperforms Powell-based GME in terms of PSNR and computational time.