Patent US 4,924,310

A method for the determination of motion vector fields from digital image sequences derives a motion vector field from two successive image frames, with the motion vector field relating a picture element of the other image frame to every picture element of the one image frame, whereby the relation is defined by a motion vector which reproduces the displacement of the picture elements relative to one another and whereby respectively all picture elements in a square or rectangular block of picture elements receive the same motion vector. The determination of the motion vectors is carried out by minimization of a composite objective function which, first, takes into consideration the difference in the luminance values of the mutually allocated picture elements of the two established frames, and, then evaluates or weights the differences between adjacent or neighboring motion vectors, evaluating or weighting these with the assistance of a smoothing measure. The minimization of this objective function is carried out in such fashion that, first, the motion vectors minimizing the objective function are determined, given the restriction that the motion vectors in blocks larger than the blocks ultimately desired are constant, and that, subsequently, each of these blocks (16.times.6) is subdivided into smaller, preferably equal-sized blocks until the desired block size (4.times.4) is achieved.