Enhanced Directional Hexagonal Search Algorithm

Hexagonal block search algorithms considerably improve the execution speed of motion estimation over previously developed fast search algorithms. These algorithms focus on improvement of either coarse search or inner search. Proposed Enhanced Directional Hexagonal Search (EDHS) algorithm improves both the searches with respect to number of search points. This algorithm reduces the number of search points by exploiting the distortion information in the neighboring search points. Directionality obtained in coarse search helps reduce inner search points. Our experimental results show that the proposed algorithm substantially outperforms previously developed hexagonal search algorithms in terms of number of search points with slight improvement in the Peak Signal-to-Noise ratio. (PSNR).