Content-based video compression

• US 6,026,183 A
• Filed: 10/25/1996
• Issued: 02/15/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/1995
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Das, Arnab, Courtney, Jonathan D., Talluri, Rajendra K., Bannon, Thomas J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Thomas D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chen, Wenpeng
• Application Number:
  US08/738,126
• Time in Patent Office: 1,208 Days
• Field of Search: 382/173, 382/194, 382/271, 382/103, 382/171, 382/180, 382/199, 382/237, 382/282, 382/159, 382/153, 348/332
• US Class Current: 382/194
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/20 Contour coding, e.g. using detection of edges
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/17 the unit being an image region, e.g. an object
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/1883 the unit relating to sub-band structure, e.g. hierarchical level, directional tree, e.g. low-high [LH], high-low [HL], high-high [HH]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/20 using video object coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/63 using sub-band based transform, e.g. wavelets

Abstract

A video compression method and system including object-oriented compression with object boundaries described by maps of 2×2 (or larger) blocks of pixels in which at least a fraction of the pixels of such blocks are in the object.

Claims

1. A method of describing a boundary of a region in an image, comprising the steps of:

(a) providing an N×

M pixel image containing a region;

(b) covering said region with an m×

n array of k×

k blocks of pixels, k at least 2;

(c) labelling each of said k×

k blocks as in said region when at least tk² pixels of said k×

k block are in said region, said multiplier t is a positive number between 0 and 1; and

(d) describing the boundary of said region by said labelling of said k×

k blocks,

wherein the boundary is a complete boundary of the region.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

(a) t is between 0.15 and 0.25.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

(a) k is equal to 16.