N A T A N J A C O B S O N
Graduate Student Researcher
Video Processing Lab
ECE @ UCSD


A Novel Approach to FRUC Using Discriminant Saliency and Frame Segmentation
Natan Jacobson, Yen-Lin Lee, Vijay Mahadevan, Nuno Vasconcelos, Truong Q. Nguyen
IEEE Trans. Image Process., vol. 19, no. 11, pp. 2924-2934, Nov. 2010

Motion-compensated frame interpolation (MCFI) is a technique used extensively for increasing the temporal frequency of a video sequence. In order to obtain a high quality interpolation, the motion field between frames must be well-estimated. However, many current techniques for determining the motion are prone to errors in occlusion regions, as well as regions with repetitive structure. We propose an algorithm for improving both the objective and subjective quality of MCFI by refining the motion vector field. We first utilize a discriminant saliency classifier to determine which regions of the motion field are most important to a human observer. These regions are refined using a multistage motion vector refinement (MVR), which promotes motion vector candidates based upon their likelihood given a local neighborhood. For regions which fall below the saliency-threshold, a frame segmentation is used to locate regions of homogeneous color and texture via normalized cuts. Motion vectors are promoted such that each homogeneous region has a consistent motion. Experimental results demonstrate an improvement over previous frame rate up-conversion (FRUC) methods in both objective and subjective picture quality.

CIF sequences (352x288) metric 3DRS MSEA Full Search Proposed
COASTGUARD PSNR 32.4071 33.8265 33.8948 34.8572
SSIM 0.9833 0.9866 0.9868 0.9893
video clip: 3DRS vs. PROP
video clip: FS vs. PROP
video clip: MSEA vs. PROP
FOOTBALL PSNR 23.0517 23.8816 23.9127 24.2448
SSIM 0.9441 0.9511 0.9513 0.9571
video clip: 3DRS vs. PROP
video clip: FS vs. PROP
video clip: MSEA vs. PROP
FOREMAN PSNR 36.1712 37.5657 37.6198 37.6827
SSIM 0.9869 0.9904 0.9905 0.9911
video clip: 3DRS vs. PROP
video clip: FS vs. PROP
video clip: MSEA vs. PROP
TENNIS PSNR 29.7027 30.7389 30.6444 31.3106
SSIM 0.9667 0.9664 0.9666 0.9733
video clip: 3DRS vs. PROP
video clip: FS vs. PROP
video clip: MSEA vs. PROP
HD sequences (1280x720) metric 3DRS MSEA Full Search Proposed
DOLPHINS PSNR 30.6850 31.8903 31.8539 31.9006
SSIM 0.9417 0.9504 0.9511 0.9537
video clip: 3DRS vs. PROP
video clip: FS vs. PROP
video clip: MSEA vs. PROP
LIMIT PSNR 37.5492 38.2784 38.5500 38.6604
SSIM 0.9855 0.9866 0.9871 0.9876
video clip: 3DRS vs. PROP
video clip: FS vs. PROP
video clip: MSEA vs. PROP
PLANES PSNR 36.6685 37.1436 37.2119 38.2912
SSIM 0.9940 0.9950 0.9950 0.9552
video clip: 3DRS vs. PROP
video clip: FS vs. PROP
video clip: MSEA vs. PROP
SPEEDWAY PSNR 25.7847 26.6485 26.6092 26.6846
SSIM 0.9335 0.9407 0.9404 0.9411
video clip: 3DRS vs. PROP
video clip: FS vs. PROP
video clip: MSEA vs. PROP