Method and apparatus for estimating camera motion

A camera motion estimation apparatus for extracting a camera motion made at the time of photographing from a photographed moving picture, comprising:

• a frame picture memory unit for storing a plurality of moving picture frames with one frame separated from another;
• a buffer for sequentially extracting the frames stored in the frame picture memory unit and storing them;
• a block division unit for dividing each of the frames stored in the buffer into a plurality of blocks;
• a mean picture generation unit for generating horizontal and vertical mean pictures using the blocks obtained through the block division unit to estimate a camera motion;
• a horizontal and a vertical mean picture memory unit for storing data of the horizontal and the vertical mean pictures generated in the mean picture generation unit;
• a motion vector extraction unit for extracting motion vectors from the blocks using the horizontal and the vertical mean picture data stored in the horizontal and the vertical mean picture memory unit;
• a motion vector memory unit for storing data of the motion vectors extracted in the motion vector extraction unit;
• and
• a camera motion estimation unit for estimating a camera motion using the motion vector data stored in the motion vector memory unit.