Encoding and decoding with super compression a via a priori generic objects

• US 6,683,993 B1
• Filed: 11/08/1996
• Issued: 01/27/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/08/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hughes Electronics Corporation (Rtx Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Hughes Electronics Corporation (Rtx Corporation)
• Inventors: Mead, Donald C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Johnson, Timothy M.
• Application Number:
  US08/745,587
• Time in Patent Office: 2,636 Days
• Field of Search: 382/190, 382/243, 382/248, 382/246, 382/232, 382/236, 382/239, 382/253, 375/240.22
• US Class Current: 382/253
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/20 using video object coding

Abstract

A method and apparatus for transferring a data signal includes a transmitter having an encoder and a receiver having a decoder. The encoder includes a segment selector for identifying a signal segment from a group of speech, audio, video and graphic signals, each selected segment comprising a representation of an information quantity. The encoder includes a plurality of encoder libraries, one of the libraries containing a generic representation corresponding to the information quantity and a symbolic code corresponding to the object. The decoder has a second plurality of libraries corresponding to the plurality of encoder libraries, and one of the decoder libraries generates the information quantity as output in response to matching of the symbolic code transmitted from the encoder.

Claims

1. A system for transferring a data signal including a transmitter having an encoder and a receiver having a decoder, comprising:

said encoder including a object selector for identifying a signal segment from the group of speech, audio, video and graphic signals, each selected segment comprising a representation of an information quantity;

wherein said encoder includes a plurality of encoder libraries, one of said libraries containing an a priori generic feature representation of an information quantity and a symbolic code corresponding to said a priori generic feature representation of said information quantity; and

said decoder having a second plurality of libraries corresponding to said plurality of encoder libraries, and one of said decoder libraries containing said a priori generic feature representation of said information quantity and said symbolic code corresponding to said a priori generic feature representation of information quantity.

2. A system for encoding a signal into a bit stream, the signal representative of data including data representing at least one a priori generic object in at least one frame, the system comprising:

an object selector for selecting feature quantities of a data information signal from aural or visual information signals that relate closely to said at least one a priori generic object;

an object encoder with an object library, said library assigning a symbolic code to said at least one a priori generic object contained in the at least one object frame, wherein the symbolic code identifies said at least one a priori generic object from a set of generic objects in said library;

an unrecognized signal portion input to the object encoder; and

a multiplexer which provides a bit stream based upon combining the unrecognized signal portion input and the symbolic code identifying said a priori generic object.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the library includes a first storage device which contains the set of generic objects.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the object encoder stores an unrecognized object in the first storage device.

5. The system of claim 2 wherein the object encoder includes a visual image segmenter which segments the at least one video image frame into at least one object.

6. The system of claim 2 wherein the object encoder includes a feature extractor which forms at least one feature quantity for the object.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the object encoder includes a classifier, coupled to the feature extractor, which determines the corresponding generic object based upon the at least one feature quantity.

8. The system of claim 2 further comprising a mapper which forms a transformed signal in dependence upon the video signal, and provides the transformed signal to the object encoder.

9. The system of claim 2 further comprising a variable length coder, coupled to the multiplexer, which provides a variable length coding of the bit stream.

10. The system of claim 2 further comprising a motion estimator which performs a comparison of a first video frame to a second video frame, and provides a representation of the comparison to the multiplexer.

11. A method of encoding a signal representative of a sequence of at least one feature from an aural or visual signal representation into a bit stream,the method comprising the steps of:

segmenting said sequence into generic objects and unrecognized features;

assigning a symbolic code to a generic object contained in the at least one feature, wherein the symbolic code identifies a corresponding generic object from a set of a priori generic objects; and

multiplexing the unrecognized features signal and the symbolic code to said a priori generic object to form the bit stream.

12. A system for reconstructing an information sequence with at least one feature from a bit stream representative of an encoded signal having symbolic codes that represent generic objects and code for unrecognized information, the system comprising:

a demultiplexer which extracts said symbolic code and said code for unrecognized information from the encoded video signal, wherein the symbolic code identifies a corresponding generic object from a set of a priori generic objects; and

an object generator, coupled to the demultiplexer, which forms the sequence by generating the corresponding a priori generic object identified by the symbolic code, and reconstructing the information sequence from a generic object and said code for unrecognized information.

13. A method of reconstructing an information sequence from a bit stream with at least one symbol of a sequence of at least one generic object from an aural or visual signal segment and a coded representation of unrecognized features, the method comprising the steps of:

extracting a symbolic code for said at least one generic object and an unrecognized information portion from the signal, wherein the symbolic code identifies a corresponding generic object from a set of a priori generic objects in a library;

generating the corresponding a priori generic object from a corresponding a priori generic object library in dependence upon the symbolic code; and

generating a sequence of at least one combined feature from the generic object and said unrecognized information portion.