Scalable coding of HDTV pictures using the MPEG coder

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1994.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-121).by Adnan Husain Lawai.M.S

On-board three-dimensional object tracking: Software and hardware solutions

We describe a real time system for recognition and tracking 3D objects such as UAVs, airplanes, fighters with the optical sensor. Given a 2D image, the system has to perform background subtraction, recognize relative rotation, scale and translation of the object to sustain a prescribed topology of the fleet. In the thesis a comparative study of different algorithms and performance evaluation is carried out based on time and accuracy constraints. For background subtraction task we evaluate frame differencing, approximate median filter, mixture of Gaussians and propose classification based on neural network methods. For object detection we analyze the performance of invariant moments, scale invariant feature transform and affine scale invariant feature transform methods. Various tracking algorithms such as mean shift with variable and a fixed sized windows, scale invariant feature transform, Harris and fast full search based on fast fourier transform algorithms are evaluated. We develop an algorithm for the relative rotations and the scale change calculation based on Zernike moments. Based on the design criteria the selection is made for on-board implementation. The candidate techniques have been implemented on the Texas Instrument TMS320DM642 EVM board. It is shown in the thesis that 14 frames per second can be processed; that supports the real time implementation of the tracking system under reasonable accuracy limits

Efficient Motion Estimation and Mode Decision Algorithms for Advanced Video Coding

H.264/AVC video compression standard achieved significant improvements in coding efficiency, but the computational complexity of the H.264/AVC encoder is drastically high. The main complexity of encoder comes from variable block size motion estimation (ME) and rate-distortion optimized (RDO) mode decision methods. This dissertation proposes three different methods to reduce computation of motion estimation. Firstly, the computation of each distortion measure is reduced by proposing a novel two step edge based partial distortion search (TS-EPDS) algorithm. In this algorithm, the entire macroblock is divided into different sub-blocks and the calculation order of partial distortion is determined based on the edge strength of the sub-blocks. Secondly, we have developed an early termination algorithm that features an adaptive threshold based on the statistical characteristics of rate-distortion (RD) cost regarding current block and previously processed blocks and modes. Thirdly, this dissertation presents a novel adaptive search area selection method by utilizing the information of the previously computed motion vector differences (MVDs). In H.264/AVC intra coding, DC mode is used to predict regions with no unified direction and the predicted pixel values are same and thus smooth varying regions are not well de-correlated. This dissertation proposes an improved DC prediction (IDCP) mode based on the distance between the predicted and reference pixels. On the other hand, using the nine prediction modes in intra 4x4 and 8x8 block units needs a lot of overhead bits. In order to reduce the number of overhead bits, an intra mode bit rate reduction method is suggested. This dissertation also proposes an enhanced algorithm to estimate the most probable mode (MPM) of each block. The MPM is derived from the prediction mode direction of neighboring blocks which have different weights according to their positions. This dissertation also suggests a fast enhanced cost function for mode decision of intra encoder. The enhanced cost function uses sum of absolute Hadamard-transformed differences (SATD) and mean absolute deviation of the residual block to estimate distortion part of the cost function. A threshold based large coefficients count is also used for estimating the bit-rate part

Hadamard transformcoding of television signals. A theoretical investigation of the adaptive coding of Hadamard transformed television signals. The use of computable objective measures for the assessment of local subpicture characteristics in selecting appropriate coders.

The problem of determining an objective means for assessing local characteristics of television subpictures in a Hadamard transform multicoder scheme is stated and discussed. Detailed investigations of transform domain coefficient statistical characteristics for different test images have been conducted. Both monochrome and colour signals were used, as well as different transform sizes and shapes. " Directing Indexes " are proposed which, depending on the inter-relationships among transform coefficients and groups of coefficients, direct each subpicture to the appropriate coder. Three indexes in the case of monochrome signals are proposed, each with its own computational procedures and application requirements. Necessary modifications and changes for application of some indexes on colour signals are also discussed. The proposed technique of indexing eliminates the necessity of equal distribution of subpictures among 'activity classes', a major disadvantage encountered in present activity index. Coders to be used with each directing index are devised and tested, subject to an arbitrary bit rate of 2 bits per pixel, with satisfactory performance compared with some published results for other techniques