Optical Flow
Optical flow is a computer vision technique that estimates the motion of objects between consecutive frames in a video sequence by calculating the apparent movement of pixels. It models how pixels move over time, often represented as a vector field where each vector indicates the direction and speed of motion at a point. This concept is fundamental for tasks like motion analysis, object tracking, and video compression.
Developers should learn optical flow for applications in robotics, autonomous vehicles, and video processing where understanding motion is critical. It's essential for real-time object tracking in surveillance systems, motion compensation in video encoding, and enhancing augmented reality experiences by aligning virtual objects with moving scenes.