VERFAHREN UND VORRICHTUNG ZUM ABSCHAETZEN UND KOMPENSIEREN DER BEWEGUNG IN EINER BILDSEQUENZ UND BILDTRANSMISSIONSSYSTEM MIT EINER SOLCHEN VORRICHTUNG

Device for estimating motion in an image sequence comprising first, second and third image memories (10, 20, 30) placed in series in order to continuously ensure the respective storage of three successive images labelled for example by their rank 2k, 2k + 1, 2k + 2 in the image sequence, and a recursive displacement estimator (40) receiving the output from the said first and third image memories in order to update with each extension of the classification tree the displacement vectors relating to the nodes of the tree and send them to a delayed decision circuit (50), the said delayed decision circuit receiving, on the one hand, the said updating and, on the other hand, the outputs from the said image memories, and delivering, for each block preceding the current block of L blocks, the information from the group into which this preceding block is finally classified, and the information from the corresponding displacement vector. This device can be used in particular for the transmission of high-definition television pictures, as well as in the field of remote conferencing or that of recording images.