A bridge between block matching and semantic (model based) motion estimation

We present the split-merge displacement estimation algorithm as a bridge between the standard, block matching, displacement estimation technique and the semantic motion estimation techniques. We review this new technique and its applications in video compression and show how it can be used to maintain two different segmentation of the current visual field: a spatial segmentation identifying the objects that are present in the scene and a classification of the visual field into moving areas, that keeps track over time of the relationships between the objects.