A method and an apparatus for filtering motion vector fields provided by a motion estimator apparatus are disclosed. The method includes receiving an input image, determining a motion vector field associated with the input image, determining a local segmentation image, forming a lattice map to identify periodic structures, using the local segmentation image and the lattice map to obtain an image segment pixel count and an image/motion segment pixel count, and using the segment pixel count and the image/motion segment pixel count to provide a filtered motion vector field. Some embodiments further include a motion estimation apparatus including an image delay apparatus, a lattice detector to find lattice structures in the input and delayed images, a histogram generator and a histogram analyzer to provide a set of horizontal and vertical search masks, a motion vector estimator to provide a motion vector field, and a motion vector filter as provided herein.