Quality priority

• US 20030142875A1
• Filed: 01/27/2003
• Published: 07/31/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/1999
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Quvis
• Original Assignee: Quvis
• Inventors: Goertzen, Kenbe D.
• Application Number:
  US10/352,379
• Publication Number:
  US 20030142875A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/240
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/10 using adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/112 according to a given display mode, e.g. for interlaced or progressive display mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/122 Selection of transform size, e.g. 8x8 or 2x4x8 DCT; Selection of sub-band transforms of varying structure or type
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/124 Quantisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/13 Adaptive entropy coding, e.g. adaptive variable length coding [AVLC] or context adaptive binary arithmetic coding [CABAC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/154 Measured or subjectively estimated visual quality after decoding, e.g. measurement of distortion use of rate-distortion criteria H04N19/147
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/162 User input
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/174 the region being a slice, e.g. a line of blocks or a group of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/1883 the unit relating to sub-band structure, e.g. hierarchical level, directional tree, e.g. low-high [LH], high-low [HL], high-high [HH]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/192 the adaptation method, adaptation tool or adaptation type being iterative or recursive
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/42 characterised by implementation details or hardware specially adapted for video compression or decompression, e.g. dedicated software implementation H04N19/635 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/46 Embedding additional information in the video signal during the compression process H04N19/517, H04N19/68, H04N19/70 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/62 by frequency transforming in three dimensions H04N19/63 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/63 using sub-band based transform, e.g. wavelets
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/70 characterised by syntax aspects related to video coding, e.g. related to compression standards

Abstract

A system, method, and electronic chip for compressing a digital data signal while maintaining a quality level is disclosed. A signal is received that is representative of a quality level. The signal may be received into a computer system or into an electronic chip, such as an application specific integrated circuit or an electronic chip operating with a computer system. A digital data signal, which may be a digital image stream is decorrelated based in part on the received quality level. The decorrelated digital data signal is quantified according to frequency so as to provide equal resolution across all frequencies. The quantified digital data signal is then entropy encoded. The digital data signal is thereby compressed. Upon decompression, the uncompressed data maintains the desired quality level over all values. If the values are color components within a digital image stream, the color components will have the desired S/N ratio.

Claims

1. A method for compressing a digital data signal while maintaining a quality level, the method comprising:

receiving a signal representative of a quality level;

decorrelating the digital data signal based in part on the received quality level;

quantifying the decorrelated digital data signal according to frequency so as to provide equal resolution across all frequencies; and

entropy encoding the quantified digital data signal.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein decorrelating includes calculating a number of transforms to be performed on the digital data signal while still maintaining the quality level.

24. The method according to claim 1, wherein the transfer function is based upon sampling theory.

3. A method for compressing a digital data signal comprising:

temporal transform coding the digital data signal so as to decorrelate the digital data signal according to time;

quantifying the temporally transformed digital data signal to maintain a desired resolution across all frequencies; and

entropy encoding the temporally transformed digital data signal.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein quantifying follows a transfer function for each sub-band region.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the transfer function is empirically determined.

6. A method for compressing a digital data signal while maintaining a quality level, the method comprising:

receiving a selected resolution;

determining a number of frequency band splits dependent in part on the selected resolution;

transforming the digital data signal into a frequency representation having the number of frequency bands;

for each frequency band, determining a data size for representing the selected resolution; and

entropy encoding the quantified digital data signal.

16. The method according to claim 15, further comprises:

calculating a transform number based in part on the quality level, wherein the transform number is the number of transforms that can be performed to decorrelate the data signal given the quality level.

17. The method according to claim 16, dividing the digital data signal by frequency.

18. The method according to claim 16, wherein the transforms are wavelet transforms.

19. The method according to claim 15 wherein the quality level is specified in number of bits of resolution.

20. The method according to claim 15 wherein the quality level is specified as an error threshold.

21. The method according to claim 15 wherein the data signal is representative of video images.

22. The method according to claim 15 wherein the data signal is representative of audio.

23. The method according to claim 15 wherein the data signal is representative of video images and audio.

25. An electronic chip for compressing digital data so as to maintain a quality level upon decompression, the electronic chip comprising:

a quality priority module.

26. The electronic chip according to claim 25, wherein the quality priority module includes a transform coder circuit for transform coding the digital data.

27. The electronic chip according to claim 26, wherein the quality priority module includes a quantization module that assign quantization values so that the resolution of the digital data is varied.

28. The electronic chip according to claim 27, wherein the quality priority module includes an entropy encoder module for entropy encoding the quantized digital data.

29. The electronic chip according to claim 27, wherein the transform coder module divides the digital data into frequency bands and wherein the quantization module quantizes the frequency bands with varying sizes.

30. The electronic chip according to claim 28, wherein the quantization module quantizes the frequency bands based upon a sampling theory curve.

31. The electronic chip according to claim 29, wherein the sampling theory curve is determined based upon the desired quality level and the frequency spectrum of the digital data.

32. The electronic chip according to claim 29 wherein the transform coder circuit is programmed to perform a wavelet-based transform.

33. The electronic chip according to claim 29, wherein the transform coder circuit is programmable through electronic instructions.

34. The electronic chip according to claim 29 wherein the transform coder circuit performs spatial-based wavelet encoding.

35. The electronic chip according to claim 29 wherein the transform coder circuit perform temporal-based wavelet encoding.

36. The electronic chip according to claim 29 wherein the transform coder circuit performs both temporal and spatial wavelet based encoding.

37. An electronic chip for compressing a digital data signal while maintaining a quality level, the electronic chip comprising:

means for receiving a signal representative of a quality level;

means for decorrelating the digital data signal based in part on the received quality level;

means for quantifying the decorrelated digital data signal according to frequency so as to provide equal resolution across all frequencies; and

means for entropy encoding the quantified digital data signal.

38. The electronic chip according to claim 37, wherein the decorrelating means includes means for calculating a number of transforms to be performed on the digital data signal while still maintaining the quality level.

39. An electronic chip for compressing a digital data signal comprising:

means for temporal transform coding the digital data signal so as to decorrelate the digital data signal according to time;

means for quantifying the temporally transformed digital data signal to maintain a desired resolution across all frequencies; and

means for entropy encoding the temporally transformed digital data signal.

40. The electronic chip according to claim 39, wherein the means for quantifying quantifies each frequency band following a transfer function.

41. The electronic chip according to claim 41, wherein the transfer function is contained within electronic code that operates with the electronic chip.

42. An electronic chip for compressing a digital data signal while maintaining a quality level, the electronic chip comprising:

means for receiving a selected resolution;

means for determining a number of frequency band splits dependent in part on the selected resolution;

means for transforming the digital data signal into a frequency representation having the number of frequency bands;

means for determining a data size for representing the selected resolution for each frequency band;

means for quantifying the transformed digital data signal based upon the determined data size for each frequency band; and

means for entropy encoding the transformed digital data signal.