A system and method for generating signals representing infrared radiation include the capability to provide a reference scene and an actual scene to a plurality of infrared detector elements arranged in a two-dimensional array, the detector elements being biased so that they produce a signal even when no infrared radiation is impinging thereon. For this purpose, in one illustrative embodiment, a cyclic epitaxial growth process including a plurality of growthetch cycles may be used at low temperatures in an ultra-high vacuum ambient, thereby obtaining a substantially bottom to top fill behavior. A nodal motion estimator estimates, for each mesh node, at least one nodal motion vector that describes a matching of the mesh node with a corresponding mesh node in the second image.