Estimation of general 2D motion using Fourier descriptors

A feature based motion estimation and compensation scheme using Fourier descriptors is introduced, which is able to estimate and compensate not only translation but also scaling and rotation. The concept of combined motion compensation is also proposed to incorporate intensity based algorithms such as block-matching to realize much better performance. A new contour tracing method has been developed which gives accurate contours in all circumstances. The practical 2p ambiguity problem for the rotation angle has been dealt with, and results on a 32 frame test sequence show good estimation by the algorithm of 2D general motion. The scheme is completed by a procedure for dealing with multiple moving objects.