Bidirectional Mesh-Based Frame Rate Up-Conversion

The authors propose a new frame rate up-conversion (FRUC) method for temporal video quality enhancement. To cope with translation as well as scale and rotation changes, the algorithm generates an interpolated frame between two given frames on the basis of bidirectional mesh interpolation (BMI). BMI performance is highly influenced by the accuracy of the correspondences between the control points in the two frames. To achieve an accurate, dense motion vector map (MVM) through bidirectional and unidirectional motion estimation, the algorithm forms an initial MVM using motion vectors transmitted from the coded bitstream. Then, the algorithm generates the interpolated frame using frame-based BMI with the dense MVM. In experiments, the authors found that the proposed algorithm is about two decibels better than several conventional FRUC methods. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm significantly diminishes block artifacts and blur artifacts.