Abstract: Cross correlation algorithms in particle image velocimetry(PIV) are used to get the full field velocity information of the flowfield from the two PIV images. Such an algorithm can be implementedin the following stages: image pre-processing, area discretization,block matching, searching programs setting, image deformation predicting anddata post-processing, which are detailed in this paper with relatedresearches during the recent years being reviewed. The spatial resolution and theefficiency of the different algorithms are discussed and compared witheach other.