Embedded coding of optical flow fields for scalable video compression

An embedded coding scheme for dense motion (optical flow) fields is proposed. Such a scheme is particularly useful in scalable video compression where one must compensate for inter-frame motion at various visual qualities and resolutions. However, the high cost of coding such fields has often made this option prohibitive. Using our previously developed `breakpoint'-adaptive wavelet transform, we show that it is possible to code dense motion fields efficiently while simultaneously endowing the coded motion representation with embedded resolution and quality scalability attributes. Performance comparisons with the traditional non-scalable block-based model are also made and presented with the aid of a modified H.264/AVC JM reference encoder.