ENCODER AND METHOD

• US 20140140359A1
• Filed: 01/24/2014
• Published: 05/22/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gurulogic Microsystems Oy
• Original Assignee: Gurulogic Microsystems Oy
• Inventors: Kalevo, Ossi Mikael, Krkkinen, Tuomas
• Granted Patent: US 9,258,389 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/474
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/119 Adaptive subdivision aspects, e.g. subdivision of a picture into rectangular or non-rectangular coding blocks
• 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 19/136 Incoming video signal characteristics or properties
• 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 19/172 the region being a picture, frame or field
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/192 the adaptation method, adaptation tool or adaptation type being iterative or recursive
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/96 Tree coding, e.g. quad-tree coding

Abstract

An encoder includes data processing hardware which is operable: to divide input data into a plurality of blocks or packets; to apply a plurality of transformations to content of the blocks or packets to generate corresponding transformed data; to check a quality of representation of the transformed data prior to application of the transformations to determine whether or not the quality of representation of the transformed data satisfies one or more quality criteria; if the quality of representation of the transformed data does not satisfy the one or more quality criteria, to sub-divide and/or to combine the one or more blocks or packets further and repeating the transformation step; and if the quality of representation of the transformed data satisfies the one or more quality criteria, to output the transformed data to provide encoded output data representative of the input data to be encoded.

Claims

1. A method of encoding input data to generate corresponding encoded output data, comprising the steps of:

(a) dividing the input data into a plurality of blocks or packets, the blocks or packets having a size depending upon a nature of their data content and/or data type, and the blocks or packets being of one or more sizes;

(b) applying a plurality of transformations to content of the blocks or packets to generate corresponding transformed data;

(c) checking a quality of representation of the transformed data of the blocks or packets compared to the content of the blocks or packets prior to application of the transformations to determine whether or not the quality of representation of the transformed data satisfies one or more quality criteria;

(d) in an event that the quality of representation of the transformed data of the one or more blocks or packets does not satisfy the one or more quality criteria, sub-dividing and/or combining the one or more blocks or packets further and repeating step (b); and

(e) in an event that the quality of representation of the transformed data of the one or more blocks or packets satisfies the one or more quality criteria, outputting the transformed data to provide the encoded output data representative of the input data to be encoded.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising using the plurality of transformations to compress content associated with the blocks or packets, so that the encoded output data is smaller in size than the input data to be encoded.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising arranging for the one or more quality criteria to be dynamically variable during encoding of the blocks or packets depending upon a nature of content included within the blocks or packets.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the blocks or packets are sub-divided and/or combined so that at least one of their representative parameters describing their content is substantially flat within their sub-divided and/or combined blocks or packets.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the blocks or packets correspond to a series of data, wherein sub-division of the input data corresponding to a given information to form the plurality of corresponding blocks is made dependent upon content present in one or more data preceding the given information within the temporal sequence of data.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising adding header information to the transformed data in step (e) to generate the encoded output data, wherein the header information includes information indicative of the transformations employed in step (b).

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein step (b) comprises fetching supplementary information from a database arrangement for use when executing said at least one transformation, wherein the supplementary information includes at least one of:

algorithms, rules, one or more transformation parameters.

8. The method as claimed in claim 7, further comprising adding header information to the encoded output data indicative of the database arrangement for enabling subsequent decoding of the encoded output data to access said supplementary information when decoding the encoded output data.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising employing for the transformations one or more of:

a data base, a DC-value, slide, scale, line, multilevel, unchanged, interpolation, extrapolation, DCT, pulse code modulation (PCM), DPCM, RLE, SRLE, EM, LZO, VLC, Huffman-coding, arithmetic coding, range coding, transform coding, delta coding, ODelta coding, bzip2-specific RLE, color conversion, quantization, wavelet transform, Hadamard transform, linear transform and inverse methods of all mentioned but not limited thereto.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising encoding at least one of video, image, audio, graphics, economic data, mask data, multidimensional data (such as 3D), text data, texture data, ECG, seismic, ASCII, Unicode, calendar data, mathematical data and binary information present in the input data.

11. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising encoding multiple channels and/or layers in the encoded output data for providing at least one of:

interactive video, commercial advertisements, a plurality of viewpoints during sports event reporting, interactive watermarks, interactive pattern recognition, animated 2D/3D user interface buttons.

12. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising providing the encoded data to at least one of following destinations:

a data memory device, a communication network, a memory card, data memory disks, and local area communication networks (LANs), directly to a decoder.

13. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein step (a) comprises initially splitting the input data into one or more blocks based on at least one of:

(1) image resolutions;

(2) an amount of data;

(3) a content of data;

(4) maximum block or packet size; and

(5) a quality parameter

14. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising utilizing only a single processing unit.

15. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising utilizing only a single memory device.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable data storage media comprising computer instructions which when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform the method as claimed in claim 1.

17. An encoder operable to encode input data to generate corresponding encoded output data, comprising includes data processing hardware which is operable:

(a) to divide the input data into a plurality of blocks or packets, the blocks or packets having a size depending upon a nature of their data content and/or data type, and the blocks or packets being of one or more sizes;

(b) to apply at least one transformation to content of the blocks or packets to generate corresponding transformed data;

(c) to check a quality of representation of the transformed data of the blocks or packets compared to the content of the blocks or packets prior to application of the transformations to determine whether or not the quality of representation of the transformed data satisfies one or more quality criteria;

(d) in an event that the quality of representation of the transformed data of the one or more blocks or packets does not satisfy the one or more quality criteria, to sub-divide and/or to combine the one or more blocks or packets further and repeating step (b); and

(e) in an event that the quality of representation of the transformed data of the one or more blocks or packets satisfies the one or more quality criteria, to output the transformed data to provide the encoded output data representative of the input data to be encoded.

18. The encoder as claimed in claim 17, wherein the encoder is operable to use the at least one transformation to compress content associated with the blocks or packets, so that the encoded output data is smaller in size than the input data to be encoded.

19. The encoder as claimed in claim 17, wherein the encoder is operable to arrange for the one or more quality criteria to be dynamically variable during encoding of the blocks or packets depending upon a nature of content included within the blocks or packets.

20. The encoder as claimed in claim 17, wherein the blocks or packets are sub-divided and/or combined so that at least one of their representative parameters describing their content is substantially flat within their sub-divided and/or combined blocks or packets.

21. The encoder as claimed in claim 17, wherein the blocks or packets correspond to a series of data, wherein sub-division of the input data corresponding to a given information to form the plurality of corresponding blocks is made dependent upon content present in one or more data preceding the given information within the temporal sequence of data.

22. The encoder as claimed in claim 17, wherein the encoder is operable to add header information to the transformed data to generate the encoded output data, wherein the header information includes information indicative of the transformations employed by the encoder.

23. The encoder as claimed in claim 17, wherein the encoder is operable to fetch supplementary information from a database arrangement for use when executing the transformations, wherein the supplementary information includes at least one of:

algorithms, rules, one or more transformation parameters.

24. The encoder as claimed in claim 23, wherein the encoder is operable to add header information to the encoded output data in a manner indicative of the database arrangement for enabling subsequent decoding of the encoded output data to access the supplementary information when decoding the encoded output data.

25. The encoder as claimed in claim 17, wherein the encoder is operable to employ for the transformations one of more of:

data base, DC-value, slide, scale, line, multilevel, unchanged, interpolation, extrapolation, DCT, pulse code modulation (PCM), DPCM, RLE, SRLE, EM, LZO, VLC, Huffman-coding, arithmetic coding, range coding, transform coding, delta coding, ODelta coding, bzip2-specific RLE, color conversion, quantization, wavelet transform, Hadamard transform, linear transform and inverse methods of all mentioned but not limited thereto.

26. The encoder as claimed in claim 17, wherein the encoder further comprises a single processing unit.

27. The encoder as claimed in claim 17, wherein the encoder further comprises a single memory device.