Transparent digital images and method of processing and storing same

• US 20060256380A1
• Filed: 05/10/2005
• Published: 11/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Research In Motion Limited (Blackberry Limited)
• Original Assignee: Research In Motion Limited (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Klassen, Gary D., Phipps, Darcy Richard, Young, Brian A.
• Application Number:
  US11/125,078
• Publication Number:
  US 20060256380A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.160
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/12 Selection from among a plurality of transforms or standards, e.g. selection between discrete cosine transform [DCT] and sub-band transform or selection between H.263 and H.264
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/187 the unit being a scalable video layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/30 using hierarchical techniques, e.g. scalability H04N19/63 takes precedence

Abstract

A method of reducing a storage size of a digital image file without affecting display quality of the digital image, comprising the steps of splitting the image into a first component and a second component; encoding the first component as a lossy compression component; encoding the second component as a lossless transparency component; and associating the lossy compression component and the lossless transparency component.

Claims

1. A method of reducing a storage size of a digital image file without affecting display quality of said digital image, comprising the steps of:

splitting said image into a first component and a second component;

encoding said first component as a lossy compression component;

encoding said second component as a lossless transparency component; and

associating said lossy compression component and said lossless transparency component.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising, occurring before the step of splitting, the step of:

retrieving said digital image file.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein said step of retrieving comprises the step of:

retrieving said digital image file from a memory.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein said step of retrieving comprises the step of:

retrieving said digital image file from a server.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein said step of encoding said first component comprises the steps of:

compressing said first component using Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) Lossy Compression Encoding with discrete cosine transforms (DCT)

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said step of splitting comprises the steps of:

retrieving colour information from said digital image as said first component; and

retrieving transparency information from said digital image as said second component.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein said step of associating comprises the steps of:

combining said lossy compression component and said lossless transparency component as a single file.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein said step of combining comprises the step of:

embedding said lossy compression component within said lossless transparency component.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein said step of combining comprises the step of:

embedding said lossless compression component within said lossy compression component.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein said step of embedding comprises the step of:

storing said lossless compression component as an application extension block in said lossy compression component.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein said step of associating comprises the step of:

naming said lossy compression component and said lossless transparency component in accordance with a predetermined naming convention;

wherein said predetermined naming convention causes said lossy compression component and said lossless transparency component to have associated names.

12. A memory for storing data for access by an application program being executed on a data processing system, comprising:

a data structure stored in said memory, said data structure including information resident in a database used by said application program and including;

a lossy compression component; and

a lossless transparency component, associated with said lossy compression component.

13. The memory of claim 12 wherein said lossy compression component is a compressed JPEG file.

14. The memory of claim 13 wherein said compressed JPEG file is a set of compressed RGB values which have been compressed from an initial digital image.

15. The memory of claim 12 wherein said lossless transparency component is a PNG or GIF file.

16. The memory of claim 15 wherein said PNG or GIF file is a set of alpha channel values.