METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SIMPLIFYING THE DECODING OF DATA

• US 20100211553A1
• Filed: 04/29/2010
• Published: 08/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Eric J. Albert, Nathaniel Begeman, Sean Gies
• Original Assignee: Eric J. Albert, Nathaniel Begeman, Sean Gies
• Inventors: Gies, Sean, Albert, Eric J., Begeman, Nathaniel
• Granted Patent: US 8,195,622 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/697
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/41 Bandwidth or redundancy reduction by scanning H04N1/17 ; methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/00

Abstract

The various methods and devices described herein relate to devices which, in at least certain embodiments, may include a method of decoding data or a data stream in a file, which may include checking for a first data portion of a plurality of data portions in the file, the first data portion having a first data value, reading in data from another data portion of the plurality of data portions, decoding or decompressing the data, performing a checksum operation on the decoded data if the first data portion having the first data value is not detected, and skipping a checksum operation on the decoded data if the first data portion having the first data value is detected. In the embodiment, a checksum operation on encoded data may also be skipped. In an embodiment, the first data value may include information or instructions about how a decoder may decode the data and may also include a tag or identifier.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

encoding data into a first data section of a plurality of data sections in a file, the first data section including a first data value of a first type or a second type; and

encoding data into a second data section of the plurality of data sections in the file, the second data section to include information to allow a decoder to perform a data check on the data of the second data section if the first data section includes the first data value of the first type, the second data section to include information to allow the decoder to skip the data check on the data of the second data section if the first data section includes a first data value of the second type.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein encoding data into the first data section including the first data value of the first type includes encoding information into a critical data chunk in a PNG file that indicates to a decoder that a computation of a checksum will be performed.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein encoding data into the second data section includes encoding a data check value appended to the data in the second data section.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein encoding data into the first data section including a first data value of the second type includes encoding information into a critical data chunk in a PNG file that indicates to a decoder that a computation of a checksum will not be performed.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein encoding data into the second data section includes encoding data without a data check value appended to the data in the second data section.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein encoding data into the first data section includes encoding an indication to a decoder that a scan line of an image represented by the file has been filtered with a same filter as another scan line of the image represented by the file.

7. An apparatus, comprising:

means for encoding data into a first data section of a plurality of data sections in a file, the first data section including a first data value of a first type or a second type; and

means for encoding data into a second data section of the plurality of data sections in the file, the second data section to include information to allow a decoder to perform a data check on the data in the second data section if the first data section includes the first data value of the first type, the second data section to include information to allow the decoder to skip the data check on the data of the second data section if the first data section includes a first data value of the second type.

8. A machine-readable medium storing executable program instructions which when executed cause the machine to perform a method comprising:

encoding data into a first data section of a plurality of data sections in a file, the first data section including a first data value of a first type or a second type; and

encoding data into a second data section of the plurality of data sections in the file, the second data section including information to allow a decoder to perform a data check on the data in the second data section if the first data section includes the first data value of the first type, the second data section including information to allow the decoder to skip the data check on the data of the second data section if the first data section includes a first data value of the second type.

9. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 wherein said encoding of data into the first data section including the first data value of the first type comprises encoding information into a critical data chunk in a PNG file that indicates to a decoder that a computation of a checksum will be performed.

10. The machine-readable medium of claim 9 wherein said encoding of data into the second data section includes encoding a data check value into an image data (IDAT) chunk.

11. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 wherein said encoding of data into the first data section including a first data value of the second type comprises encoding information into a critical data chunk in a PNG file that indicates to a decoder that a computation of a checksum will not be performed.

12. The machine-readable medium of claim 11 wherein said encoding of data into the second data section comprises encoding data without a data check value into an image data chunk (IDAT).

13. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 wherein said encoding of data into the first data section includes encoding information to inform a decoder that each scan line of an image represented by the file has been filtered by a same filter.

14. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 wherein said encoding of data into the first data portion includes encoding information to inform a decoder that an image has been encoded with an arbitrary ordering of components for a pixel.

15. The machine-readable medium of claim 14 wherein said encoding of data into the second data section includes encoding data representing an image with an arbitrary ordering of components for a pixel.

16. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 wherein said encoding of data into the second data section includes encoding a premultiplied alpha channel into the second data section.

17. A method, comprising:

encoding data into a first data section of a plurality of data sections in a file, the first data section including a first data value of a first type or a second type; and

encoding data into a second data section of the plurality of data sections in the file, the second data section to include information specifying a data check to be performed on the data of the second data section if the first data section includes the first data value of the first type, the second data section to include information specifying to skip the data check on the data of the second data section if the first data section includes a first data value of the second type.

18. A machine-readable medium storing executable program instructions which when executed cause the machine to perform a method comprising:

encoding data into a first data section of a plurality of data sections in a file, the first data section including a first data value of a first type or a second type; and

encoding data into a second data section of the plurality of data sections in the file, the second data section to include information specifying a data check to be performed on the data of the second data section if the first data section includes the first data value of the first type, the second data section to include information specifying to skip the data check on the data of the second data section if the first data section includes a first data value of the second type.