Abstract: A method for the determination of motion vector fields from digital image sequences derives a motion vector field from two successive image frames, with the motion vector field relating a picture element of the other image frame to every picture element of the one image frame, whereby the relation is defined by a motion vector which reproduces the displacement of the picture elements relative to one another and whereby respectively all picture elements in a square or rectangular block of picture elements receive the same motion vector. The determination of the motion vectors is carried out by minimization of a composite objective function which, first, takes into consideration the difference in the luminance values of the mutually allocated picture elements of the two established frames, and, then evaluates or weights the differences between adjacent or neighboring motion vectors, evaluating or weighting these with the assistance of a smoothing measure.

Abstract: A method for data reduction of digital image sequences in heirarchic fashion by means of a multi-stage coder on the basis of vector quantizing and movement compensation, as well as reconstruction of these image sequences by means of a multi-stage decoder. An input image signal is represented in a plurality of image signals having different spatial resolutions by means of a cascade of L identical low-pass filters having subsequent sub-scanning, whereby the spatial resolution and the data volume of the input image signal in the horizontal and the vertical directions are respectively reduced by a factor R in every cascade stage, and whereby the input signal is referenced "resolution level L" and the low-pass filter image signal having the smallest resolution is referenced "resolution level .0.". The chronologically preceding, reconstructed, movement-compensated image signal is represented in a plurality of image signals having different topical resolution in the same way.