CONTACT IMAGE SELECTION AND ASSOCIATION METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MOBILE DEVICE

• US 20110206278A1
• Filed: 04/29/2011
• Published: 08/25/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/14/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Research In Motion Limited (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Wikkerink, Earl, Pollock, Stuart, Tysowski, Piotr
• Granted Patent: US 8,542,808 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/166
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/27475 using interactive graphical means or pictorial representations
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/576 associated with a pictorial or graphical representation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/124 Quantisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/172 the region being a picture, frame or field
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/184 the unit being bits, e.g. of the compressed video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/192 the adaptation method, adaptation tool or adaptation type being iterative or recursive
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/60 using transform coding

Abstract

A method and computing device for encoding an image according to a preset encoding parameter for the image. The encoding producing an encoded image having a file size. If it is determined that the file size exceeds a maximum file size and the encoding parameter does not meet a threshold, the encoding parameter is modified. The encoding, determining and modifying are repeated until the file size does not exceed a maximum file size or the encoding parameter meets the threshold.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for encoding an image, the method comprising:

setting an encoding parameter for the image;

encoding the image according to the encoding parameter to produce an encoded image having a file size;

determining that the file size exceeds a maximum file size and that the encoding parameter does not meet a threshold and, in response, modifying the encoding parameter; and

repeating the encoding, determining, and modifying until the file size does not exceed a maximum file size or the encoding parameter meets the threshold.

2. The method according to claim 1 further comprising recording the encoded image when the file size does not exceed the maximum file size or the encoding parameter meets the threshold.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein the encoding parameter comprises any one of a quality factor, image dimensions and color depth.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein the maximum file size is about 3 kilobytes.

5. The method according to claim 1 wherein encoding the image comprises encoding the image according to any one of JPEG, GIF and PNG image file formats.

6. The method according to claim 1 wherein setting an encoding parameter comprises setting a JPEG compression quality factor to about 75 on a scale of 0 to 100, wherein modifying the encoding parameter comprises decreasing the quality factor and wherein the encoding parameter meets the threshold when the quality factor is below about 50.

7. The method according to claim 6, comprising receiving configuration data from a host system before setting the quality factor, the configuration data containing any one of an initial encoding parameter, a threshold encoding parameter and a maximum file size.

8. A computing device for encoding an image, the device comprising:

a memory containing at least one image file containing image data for rendering an image; and

an image encoder for receiving selection of a sub-image selected from the image and encoding the sub-image according to an encoding parameter to produce a sub-image file,

wherein the image encoder is configured to incrementally modify the encoding parameter and re-encode the sub-image with the modified encoding parameter until a file size of the sub-image file exceeds a maximum file size or the encoding parameter meets a threshold.

9. The computing device according to claim 8 wherein the image encoder is configured to store the sub-image file in memory when either the file size does not exceed the maximum file size or the encoding parameter meets the threshold.

10. The computer implemented method according to claim 9 wherein the encoding parameter comprises any one of a quality factor, image dimensions and color depth.

11. The computing device according to claim 8 wherein the maximum file size is about 3 kilobytes.

12. The computing device according to claim 8 wherein the image encoder comprises any one of a JPEG, GIF and PNG image encoder.

13. The computing device according to claim 8 wherein the encoding parameter comprises a JPEG compression quality factor of about 75 on a scale of 0 to 100 and the threshold comprises about 50, and wherein the image encoder is configured to modify the encoding parameter by decreasing the encoding parameter.

14. A computer program product comprising a tangible machine-readable medium having encoded thereon computer-readable instructions executable by a processor for causing a computing device to encode an image, the computer-readable instructions comprising:

instructions for setting an encoding parameter for the image;

instructions for encoding the image according to the encoding parameter to produce an encoded image having a file size;

instructions for determining that the file size exceeds a maximum file size and that the encoding parameter does not meet a threshold and, in response, modifying the encoding parameter; and

instructions for repeating the encoding, determining, and modifying until the file size does not exceed a maximum file size or the encoding parameter meets the threshold.

15. The computer program product according to claim 14 further comprising instructions for recording the encoded image when the file size does not exceed the maximum file size or the encoding parameter meets the threshold

16. The computer program product according to claim 14 wherein the encoding parameter comprises any one of a quality factor, image dimensions and color depth.

17. The computer program product according to claim 14 wherein the maximum file size is about 3 kilobytes.

18. The computer program product according to claim 14 wherein the instructions for encoding the image comprise instructions for encoding the image according to anyone of JPEG, GIF and PNG image file formats.

19. The computer program product according to claim 14 wherein the instructions for setting an encoding parameter comprise instructions for setting a JPEG compression quality factor to about 75 on a scale of 0 to 100, wherein modifying the encoding parameter comprises decreasing the quality factor and wherein the encoding parameter meets the threshold when the quality factor is below about 50.