Decoding apparatus and method

• US 5,801,650 A
• Filed: 11/28/1995
• Issued: 09/01/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/1994
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Nakayama, Tadayoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Young, Brian K.
• Application Number:
  US08/566,583
• Time in Patent Office: 1,008 Days
• Field of Search: 341/67, 341/65, 341/106
• US Class Current: 341/67
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 7/425 for the decoding process only

Abstract

An unpacking circuit 103 takes the top 16-bit data from an input code after eliminating previously decoded data on the basis of code length information 106. An operation unit 501 obtains a redundant code number of a Huffman code inputted from the unpacking circuit 103 and upper three bits of the code length information 106. By referring to a decoding table 503, an eight-bit fixed-length data and the least significant bit of the code length information are obtained correspondence with an input nine-bit redundant code number signal 502. Therefore, memory size required for storing the decoding table 503 is 2⁹ ×9 bits=576 bytes, thus, comparing to a case where memory size for storing the decoding table of 96 kbytes when changing into a fixed code length by using only the decoding table, it is possible to use a decoding table of smaller size.

Claims

1. A decoding device comprising:

computing means for obtaining a part of code length information of an input code which has plural bits and a predetermined code number corresponding to said input code; and

transformation means for transforming the code number obtained by said computing means into a fixed-length code and a rest of said code length information.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein said input code is a variable length code.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein said code number is a redundant code number.

4. The device according to claim 1, wherein said computing means includes:

storage means for storing a plurality of pairs, a boundary value of a code and a code number, corresponding to the respective boundary values by a predetermined code length;

determination means for determining a range of code length of said input code on the basis of comparison results between each of the plurality of boundary values stored in said storage means and said input code;

subtracting means for obtaining a difference between said input code and one of said boundary values, stored in said storage means, corresponding to the range of code length obtained by said determination means;

selecting means for selecting one of the code numbers stored in said storage means on the basis of the range of code length; and

adding means for adding the difference obtained by said subtracting means and the code number selected by said selecting means, and obtaining a code number corresponding to said input code.

5. The device according to claim 4, wherein said computing means further includes generating means for generating a part of said code length information from the range of code length obtained by said determination means.

6. The device according to claim 4, wherein said storage means stores pairs of lower boundary values of codes and redundant code numbers respectively corresponding to the lower boundary values by code length of even-number bit.

7. The device according to claim 1, wherein said transformation means is a decoding table stored in a memory.

8. The device according to claim 1, further comprising:

input means for inputting a code; and

unpacking means for providing a predetermined number of bits of data extracted from the code inputted by said input means to said operation means as the input code on the basis of the part of code length information obtained by said operation means and the rest of the code length information obtained by said transformation means.

20. A decoding device according to claim 1, further comprising:

supplying means for supplying the input code to said computing means in a unit of a predetermined number of bits, the predetermined number being greater than one,

wherein said computing means obtains the part of the code length information and the predetermined code number by processing the input code in the unit of the predetermined number of bits supplied by said supplying means.

9. A decoding device comprising:

input means for inputting a code;

unpacking means for outputting a predetermined number of bits of data extracted from the code input by said input means on the basis of provided code length information;

computing means for obtaining code length information of the data output by said unpacking means and a predetermined code number corresponding to the data output by said unpacking means, and for providing the code length information to said unpacking means; and

transformation means for transforming the code number obtained by said computing means into a fixed-length code.

10. The device according to claim 9, wherein said code is a variable length code.

11. The device according to claim 9, wherein said code number is a redundant code number.

12. The device according to claim 9, wherein said computing means includes:

storage means for storing a plurality of pairs of boundary values of codes and code numbers corresponding to the respective boundary values of a predetermined code length;

determination means for determining a range of code length of the data output by said unpacking means on the basis of comparison results between each of the plurality of boundary values stored in said storage means and the data output by said unpacking means;

subtracting means for obtaining a difference between the data output by said unpacking means and one of said boundary values, stored in said storage means, corresponding to the range of code length obtained by said determination means;

selecting means for selecting one of the code numbers stored in said storage means and one of the boundary values on the basis of the range of code length; and

adding means for adding the difference obtained by said subtracting means and the code number selected by said selecting means, and obtaining a code number corresponding to the data.

13. The device according to claim 12, wherein said computing means further includes generating means for generating said code length information from a comparison result between the boundary value selected by said selecting means and the data outputted by said unpacking means, and the range of code length obtained by said determination means.

14. The device according to claim 12, wherein said storage means stores a plurality of pairs of lower boundary values of codes and redundant code numbers respectively corresponding to the lower boundary values for even number of bit code length.

15. The device according to claim 9, wherein said transformation means is a decoding table stored in a memory.

16. A decoding method comprising the steps of:

obtaining a part of code length information of an input code having plural bits;

obtaining a predetermined code number corresponding to said input code; and

transforming the obtained code number into a fixed-length code and a rest of said code length information.

17. A decoding method comprising:

an input step of inputting a code;

an unpacking step of extracting a predetermined number of bits of data from the code inputted at said input step;

a first computing step of computing a part of code length information of the predetermined number of bits of data extracted at said unpacking step;

a second computing step of obtaining a predetermined code number corresponding to the predetermined number of bits of data; and

a transformation step of transforming the code number obtained at said second computing step into a fixed-length code and a rest of said code length information,

wherein, at said unpacking step, the predetermined number of bits of data is extracted from the code inputted at said input step on the basis of a part of code length information obtained at said first computing step and a rest of the code length information obtained at said transformation step.

18. A decoding method comprising:

an input step of inputting a code;

an unpacking step of extracting a predetermined number of bits of data from the code inputted at said input step;

a first computing step of computing code length information of the predetermined number of bits of data extracted at said unpacking step;

a second computing step of obtaining a predetermined code number corresponding to the predetermined number of bits of data; and

a transformation step of transforming the code number obtained at said second computing step into a fixed-length code,

wherein at said unpacking step, the predetermined number of bits of data is extracted from the code inputted at said input step on the basis of code length information obtained at said first computing step.

19. A decoding device comprising:

input means for inputting a code;

unpacking means for outputting a predetermined number of bits of data extracted from the code inputted by said input means on the basis of a provided part of code length information and a provided rest of code length information;

computing means for obtaining and providing a part of code length information of the data outputted by said unpacking means and a predetermined code number corresponding to the data; and

transformation means for transforming the code number provided by said computing means into a fixed-length code and a rest of the code length information to be provided.