Methods of and apparatus for motion estimation

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing software code which when executed on one or more processors performs a method of performing motion estimation for spatially arranged data in a data processor, the spatially arranged data having been previously compressed using a compression algorithm that generates compression meta data representing the spatially arranged data, the method comprising:

• for a first region of the spatially arranged data:
• obtaining compression meta data for the first region, the compression metadata comprising smoothness information indicative of a smoothness of the first region;
• and
• determining a search space size based on the obtained smoothness information, the search space size being a size of a search space for applying a region-matching motion estimation algorithm to the first region to match the first region with a corresponding region in reference spatially arranged data within the search space.

A graphics processor comprising:

• processing circuitry for performing motion estimation for spatially arranged data, the spatially arranged data having been previously compressed using a compression algorithm that generates compression meta data representing the spatially arranged data, the processing circuitry being configured to:
• for a first region of the spatially arranged data:
• obtain compression meta data for the first region, the compression metadata comprising smoothness information indicative of a smoothness of the first region;
• and
• determine a search space size based on the obtained smoothness information, the search space size being a size of a search space for applying a region-matching motion estimation algorithm to the first region to match the first region with a corresponding region in reference spatially arranged data within the reduced search space.