Variable compression encoding of digitized images
First Claim
1. A method for variably encoding a source image, such method comprising the steps of:
- defining a plurality of image quality levels each specifying a quality at which an image is encoded;
assigning, to each of a plurality of regions of the source image, one of the plurality of image quality levels; and
iteratively encoding, for each assigned image quality level and in increasing order of image quality level, each region of the source image having the assigned image quality level and those regions assigned a lossy image quality level at least as great as the assigned image quality level to produce an encoded image.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Regions of a source image (900) are encoded at different levels of image quality. A plurality of image quality levels are defined (1010). In addition, the source image (900) is divided into one or more regions (912, 914, 916) and one of the image quality levels is assigned to each region (1012). Next, the entire source image (900) is encoded, preferably with JPEG encoding, at the lowest image quality level Q1, assigned to the image (1016). Then, the encoded source image (900) is decoded by a matching decoding process into a reference frame (1018). If the next highest image quality level Q2 is lossy, then the reference frame and source image are scaled according to the image quality level Q2 (1020). Then, differences between the source image and the reference frame are determined for all lossy regions assigned an image quality level greater than or equal to the image quality level Q2, and stored in a differential frame (1024). The differential frame is encoded according to the image quality level Q2 (1026), stored with the reference frame, then decoded to become the new reference frame (1028). These steps are repeated until the highest quality level assigned to a region is encoded. If the image quality level is lossless, then the reference frame is scaled to the resolution of the source image (1030), and the differential components are losslessy encoded (1038). When the variably encoded image is decoded, each of the selected regions (912, 914, 916) has the image quality defined by the assigned image quality level.
57 Citations
17 Claims
-
1. A method for variably encoding a source image, such method comprising the steps of:
-
defining a plurality of image quality levels each specifying a quality at which an image is encoded; assigning, to each of a plurality of regions of the source image, one of the plurality of image quality levels; and iteratively encoding, for each assigned image quality level and in increasing order of image quality level, each region of the source image having the assigned image quality level and those regions assigned a lossy image quality level at least as great as the assigned image quality level to produce an encoded image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16)
-
-
12. A method for variably encoding a digitized source image, such method comprising the steps of:
-
selecting at least one region of the source image, wherein the at least one selected region is less than the entire source image; encoding the source image at a first image quality level to produce a reference image; assigning, to each selected region of the source image, a lossy image quality level higher than the first image quality level; and for each assigned image quality level, and in increasing order of assigned image quality level, refining the reference image by iteratively encoding the selected regions having the assigned lossy image quality level and those regions assigned a lossy image quality level at least as great as the assigned image quality level, to produce an encoded image. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15)
-
-
17. A computer-readable medium having computer program instructions recorded thereon for variably encoding a source image stored in a memory of a computer system, the instructions comprising:
-
instructions for defining a plurality of image quality levels each specifying a quality at which an image is encoded; instructions for assigning, to each of a plurality of regions of the source image in the memory, one of the plurality of image quality levels; and instructions for iteratively encoding, for each assigned image quality level and in increasing order of image quality level, each region of the source image having the assigned image quality level and those regions assigned a lossy image quality level at least as great as the assigned image quality level to produce an encoded image.
-
Specification