Wavelets and Optical Flow Motion Estimation

Abstract

This article describes the implementation of a simple wavelet-based optical-flow motion estimator dedicated to continuous motions such as fluid flows. The wavelet representation of the unknown velocity field is considered. This scale-space representation, associated to a simple gradient-based optimization algorithm, sets up a well-defined multiresolution framework for the optical flow estimation. Moreover, a very simple closure mechanism, approaching locally the solution by high-order polynomials is provided by truncating the wavelet basis at fine scales. Accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are evaluated on image sequences of turbulent fluid flows.