Abstract: An optical flow accelerator (OFA) which provides hardware-based acceleration of optical flow and stereo disparity determination is described. A system is described which includes an OFA configured to determine a first optical flow using a first disparity search technique, and to determine a second optical flow using a second disparity search technique that is different from the first disparity search technique. The system also includes a processor configured to combine the first optical flow and the second optical flow to generate a third optical flow. In some implementations, the first and second disparity search techniques are based upon Semi-Global Matching (SGM). In some implementations, the OFA is further configurable to determine stereo disparity.

Abstract: Real-time, hardware-implementable Structured Similarity (SSIM)-based rate distortion optimization (RDO) techniques for video transmission are described. The disclosed techniques provide efficient application of SSIM as a distortion metric in selecting prediction modes for encoding video for transmission. A prediction mode, at a high level, specifies which previously encoded group of pixels can be utilized to encode a subsequent block of pixels in a video frame. A less compute intensive distortion metric is first used to select a subset of candidate prediction modes. Then a more compute intensive SSIM-based selection is made on the subset. By utilizing the disclosed techniques during video encoding, tradeoffs between distortion and transmission rate can be made that are more relevant to human perception.

Abstract: An optical flow accelerator (OFA) which provides hardware-based acceleration of optical flow and stereo disparity determination is described. A system is described which includes an OFA configured to determine a first optical flow using a first disparity search technique, and to determine a second optical flow using a second disparity search technique that is different from the first disparity search technique. The system also includes a processor configured to combine the first optical flow and the second optical flow to generate a third optical flow. In some implementations, the first and second disparity search techniques are based upon Semi-Global Matching (SGM). In some implementations, the OFA is further configurable to determine stereo disparity.

Abstract: Real-time, hardware-implementable Structured Similarity (SSIM)-based rate distortion optimization (RDO) techniques for video transmission are described. The disclosed techniques provide efficient application of SSIM as a distortion metric in selecting prediction modes for encoding video for transmission. A prediction mode, at a high level, specifies which previously encoded group of pixels can be utilized to encode a subsequent block of pixels in a video frame. A less compute intensive distortion metric is first used to select a subset of candidate prediction modes. Then a more compute intensive SSIM-based selection is made on the subset. By utilizing the disclosed techniques during video encoding, tradeoffs between distortion and transmission rate can be made that are more relevant to human perception.