Detecting periodic patterns and apeture problems for motion estimation

A program storage device readable by a computer, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the computer to perform the method steps for evaluating motion estimation between a pair of digitized images, the method comprising the steps of:

• receiving from a motion estimation algorithm a distance map between a source block in a source image and a all die blocks in an M×N search area in a target image, wherein the distance map is an M×N matrix of distance values, wherein M and N are positive non-zero integers;
• scanning each column of the distance map, and saving indices of a minimum distance value for each column;
• scanning, each row of the distance map, and saving indices of a minimum distance value for each row;
• locating candidate lines that pass through at least some local minima points that correspond to locations in the distance map of the minimum distance value in each of the columns or the minimum distance value in each of the rows;
• determining a confidence level for each candidate line that passes through at least some of the local minima points;
• and
• selecting those candidate lines whose confidence level is greater than a predetermined threshold value.