Current deformation measurement techniques suffer from limited spatial resolution. In this work, a highly accurate and high-resolution Horn–Schunck optical flow method is developed and then applied to measuring the static deformation of a birdlike flexible airfoil at a series of angles of attack at Reynolds number 100,000 in a low speed, low noise wind tunnel. To allow relatively large displacements, a nonlinear Horn–Schunck model and a coarse-to-fine warping process are adopted. To preserve optical flow discontinuities, a nonquadratic penalization function, a multicue driven bilateral filtering and a principle component analysis of local image patterns are used.First, the accuracy and convergence of this Horn–Schunck technique are verified on a benchmark.Then, the maximum displacement that can be reliably calculated by this technique is studied on synthetic images. Both studies are compared with the performance of a Lucas–Kanade optical flow method. Finally, the Horn–Schunck technique is used to estimate the 3-D deformation of the birdlike airfoil through a stereoscopic camera setup. The results are compared with those computed by Lucas–Kanade optical flow, image correlation and numerical simulation. Current deformation measurement techniques suffer from limited spatial resolution. In this work, a highly accurate and high-resolution Horn-Schunck optical flow method is developed and then applied to measuring the static deformation of a birdlike flexible airfoil at a series of angles of attack at Reynolds number 100,000 in a low speed, low noise wind tunnel. To allow relatively large displacements, a nonlinear Horn-Schunck model and a coarse-to-fine warping process are adopted. To preserve optical flow discontinuities, a nonquadratic penalization function, a multicue driven bilateral filtering and a principle component analysis of local image patterns are used. First, the accuracy and convergence of this Horn-Schunck technique are verified on a benchmark. Chen, the maximum displacement that can be sure calculated by this technique is studied on synthetic Both studies are compared with the performance of a Lucas-Kanade optical flow method. Finally, the Horn-Schunck The technique is used to estimate the 3-D deformation of the birdlike airfoil through a stereoscopic camera setup. The results are compared with those computed by Lucas-Kanade optical flow, image correlation and numerical simulation.