System and method for the compression and quantitative measurement of movement from synchronous video

• US 7,072,521 B1
• Filed: 06/19/2001
• Issued: 07/04/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cadwell Industries Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Cadwell Industries Incorporated
• Inventors: Cadwell, John A.
• Primary Examiner(s): MARIAM, DANIEL G
• Application Number:
  US09/885,288
• Time in Patent Office: 1,841 Days
• Field of Search: 382/166, 382/232, 382/236, 382/245, 382/251, 382/270
• US Class Current: 382/251
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/112 according to a given display mode, e.g. for interlaced or progressive display mode
• 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 19/122 Selection of transform size, e.g. 8x8 or 2x4x8 DCT; Selection of sub-band transforms of varying structure or type
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/176 the region being a block, e.g. a macroblock
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/182 the unit being a pixel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/186 the unit being a colour or a chrominance component
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/503 involving temporal prediction adaptive coding with adaptive selection between spatial and temporal predictive coding H04N19/107; adaptive coding with adaptive selection among a plurality of temporal predictive coding modes H04N19/109
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/93 Run-length coding

Abstract

A system and method for optimizing and quantifying movement in synchronous video are provided. An image-processing computer obtains a synchronous video image, which is converted to color bitmap frames. Each frame is then sub-divided into smaller pixel blocks. Processed independently, the size of each pixel block is reduced by truncation of the color resolution and the use of a limited color table for the pixel block. The cumulative color difference in the pixel block is calculated and if it is below a threshold, the pixel block data will not be saved. Alternatively, the pixel block data is compressed and saved. Upon decoding, the color difference between each pixel and the same pixel in the preceding frame is compared. The color difference is assigned a pseudocolor and is displayed on the screen. Larger color differences are represented with more pronounced pseudocolors.

Claims

1. A method for processing movement data in synchronous video, the method comprising:

obtaining a first frame of digital data corresponding to a digital image;

generating a color-table for the first frame of the digital data, the color-table corresponding to at least one pixel color contained within the first frame;

mapping the first frame of digital data according to the color-table;

obtaining a preceding frame of digital data corresponding to the digital image;

representing a cumulative color difference between the first and the preceding frames of the digital data in a pseudocolor, wherein the pseudocolor is configured to map cumulative color differences below a movement threshold in a grayscale and cumulative color differences above the movement threshold in at least one distinct color; and

updating a frame data with the pseudocolor if the cumulative difference is above a difference threshold, wherein the frame data is operable to regenerate the first frame of the digital data.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the preceding frame of digital data is previously mapped with a color-table corresponding to at least one pixel color contained within the preceding frame.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the first frame is a bitmap image, the method further comprising truncating at least one bit of the first frame bitmap prior to generating the color-table.

4. The method as recited in claim 3, wherein truncating at least one bit of the first frame includes truncating the three least significant bits of the bitmap image.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the color-table includes up to sixteen colors contained within the first frame.

6. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising encoding the first frame color mapping if the size of the resulting encoded color mapping is less than the size of an unencoded color mapping.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein mapping the first frame includes:

subdividing the first frame of the digital data into two or more pixel blocks; and

mapping a first pixel block according to the color table.

8. The method as recited in claim 7 further comprising repeating the method for a second pixel block.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein generating a color-table includes randomly sampling individual pixels within the first frame of the digital data to obtain at least one color in the color table.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein generating a color-table includes retrieving a predefined color-table.

11. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising discarding the frame data if a size of the frame data is greater than a size threshold.

12. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising:

compressing the first frame of the digital data utilizing a low resolution compression process; and

adjusting the difference threshold.

13. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in any one of claims 1–

12.

14. A computer system having a processor, a memory, and an operating environment, the computer system operable for performing the method recited in any one of claims 1–

12.

15. A method for processing movement data in synchronous video, the method comprising:

obtaining a first frame of digital data;

obtaining a second frame of digital data, where the second frame of digital data is representative of a time preceding the first frame of digital data;

comparing the cumulative color difference between the first and second frames of digital data;

mapping the cumulative color difference according to a pseudocolor scale, wherein the pseudocolor scale is configured to map cumulative color differences below a movement threshold in a grayscale and cumulative color differences above the movement threshold in at least one distinct color; and

displaying a resulting frame of digital data.

16. The method as recited in claim 15, wherein comparing the cumulative color difference includes:

obtaining a first pixel block from the first frame of digital data;

obtaining a first pixel block from the second frame of digital data; and

comparing the cumulative color difference between the first pixel block from the first frame of digital data and the second frame of digital data.

17. The method as recited in claim 16, wherein comparing the cumulative color difference between the pixel block data includes comparing the color difference for each pixel in the pixel block data.

18. The method as recited in claim 16 further comprising:

obtaining additional pixel blocks from the first and second frames of digital data;

comparing the cumulative color difference for each additional pixel block; and

repeating the comparison until no pixel blocks remain in the first and second frames of digital data.

19. The method as recited in claim 15, wherein the first and second frames of digital data are compressed, the method further comprising uncompressing the first and second frames of digital data prior to comparing the cumulative color difference between the first and second frames of digital data.

20. The method as recited in claim 19, wherein the frames of digital data are compressed utilizing a high resolution routine.

21. The method as recited in claim 15, wherein the pseudocolor is configured to map cumulative color differences above the movement threshold in several distinct colors, wherein each distinct color is representative of a range of cumulative color differences.

22. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in any one of claims 15–

20 and 21.

23. A computer system having a processor, a memory and an operating environment, the computer system operable to perform the method recited in any one of claims 15–

20 and 21.

24. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable modules, the computer-readable medium comprising a synchronous video compression module operable to obtain a first and second frame of digital data and generate a compressed frame data, wherein the compressed frame data is configured to include any cumulative color difference below a compression threshold in a pseudocolor, wherein the pseudocolor is configured to map cumulative color differences below a movement threshold in a grayscale and cumulative color differences above the movement threshold in at least one distinct color.

25. The computer-readable medium as recited in claim 24, further comprising a synchronous video processing module operable to obtain a first and second frame of digital data and generate a processed frame data, wherein the processed frame data is configured to map any cumulative color difference according to a pseudocolor scale, wherein the pseudocolor scale is configured to map cumulative color differences below a movement threshold in a grayscale and cumulative color differences above the movement threshold in at least one distinct color.

26. A method for processing movement data in synchronous video, the method comprising:

obtaining a first frame of digital data corresponding to a digital image;

subdividing the first frame of the digital data into two or more pixel blocks;

generating a color table for each pixel block in the first frame of the digital data, the color table corresponding to at least one color contained within each pixel block;

mapping each pixel within the pixel block according to the color table;

obtaining a preceding frame of digital data corresponding to the digital image;

representing a cumulative color difference between each pixel block in the first frame of data and a pixel block in the preceding frame of the digital data in a pseudocolor, wherein the pseudocolor is configured to map cumulative color differences below a movement threshold in a grayscale and cumulative color differences above the movement threshold in at least one distinct color; and

updating a frame data if the cumulative color difference between each pixel block is above a different threshold, wherein the frame data is operable to regenerate the first frame of the digital data.

27. The method as recited in claim 26, wherein the preceding frame of the digital data is mapped with a color table corresponding to at least one color contained within the preceding frame.

28. The method as recited in claim 26, wherein the first digital frame is a bitmap image, the method further comprising truncating at least one bit of the first frame bitmap prior to generating the color table.

29. The method as recited in claim 28, wherein truncating at least one bit of the first frame includes truncating three least significant bits of the bitmap image.

30. The method as recited in claim 26, wherein the color table includes up to sixteen colors contained within each pixel block.

31. The method as recited in claim 26, wherein generating a color table includes randomly sampling individual pixels within each pixel block of the digital data to obtain at least one color in the color table.

32. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in any one of claims 26–

31.

33. A computer system having a processor, a memory, and an operating environment, the computer system operable to perform the method recited in any one of claims 26–

31.