System and method for efficiently encoding data

• US 7,912,299 B2
• Filed: 10/11/2005
• Issued: 03/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Aguera y Arcas, Blaise, Walker, Julian
• Primary Examiner(s): Mehta; Bhavesh M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Koziol; Stephen R
• Application Number:
  US11/247,513
• Publication Number:
  US 20080031527A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,988 Days
• Field of Search: 382/232, 375/E7.198
• US Class Current: 382/232
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 7/40 Conversion to or from variable length codes, e.g. Shannon-Fano code, Huffman code, Morse code
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed which may include converting data identifying a plurality of visual features into a plurality of pixel characteristic data values; and forming an image file with pixels having the respective pixel characteristic data values.

Claims

1. One or more tangible computer storage media comprising computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computing system having a processor and memory, cause the computing system to:

convert data identifying a plurality of textual characters of an original document into a plurality of pixel characteristic data values; and

form an image file with pixels having said respective pixel characteristic data values, wherein upon display, each pixel of the pixels corresponds to a unique textual character of the plurality of textual characters.

2. The media of claim 1, wherein said data comprises ASCII codes.

3. The media of claim 1, wherein said data comprises frequency-order positions of said textual characters.

4. The media of claim 1, wherein said data is determined based on a combination of a) a frequency of use of said textual characters and b) transition probabilities between successive ones of said textual characters.

5. The media of claim 1, wherein said pixel characteristic data values comprise at least one data type selected from the following:

pixel intensity data values, pixel color data values, or image contrast data values.

6. The media of claim 1, wherein said pixel characteristic data values comprise pixel color data values.

7. The media of claim 6, wherein said pixel color data values comprise at least one color-data value from the following:

RBG (Red, Blue, Green) pixel color data values, HSV (Hue Saturation Value) pixel color data values, or CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) color data values.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

losslessly compressing said image file.

9. The media of claim 1, wherein said data comprises differences in values of said data for successive textual characters of said plurality of textual characters.

10. The media of claim 1, wherein said textual characters are comprised of alphanumeric characters.

11. The media of claim 10 further comprising instructions that when executed by the computer system cause the computer system to locate said pixels in said image file in a same order that said alphanumeric characters are ordered within the original document.

12. The media of claim 11 further comprising instructions that when executed by the computer system cause the computer system to transmit said image file to a client.

13. The media of claim 12 further comprising instructions that when executed by the computer system cause the computer system to decode at least a region of said image file into said alphanumeric characters for viewing by said client.

14. The media of claim 13, wherein a first dimension of said decoded image file region is able to be browsed by advancing along characters within one of a plurality of alphanumeric character lines.

15. The media of claim 13, wherein a second dimension of said decoded image file region is able to be browsed by scrolling over two or more of the plurality of alphanumeric character lines.

16. The media of claim 15, wherein said browsing in said first dimension comprises advancing along a line of said alphanumeric characters, and wherein said browsing in said second dimension comprises scrolling over a plurality of lines of said alphanumeric characters.

17. The media of claim 15, wherein said browsing comprises browsing said decoded image file in a manner that emulates browsing within said original document.

18. The media of claim 10 further comprising instructions that when executed by the computer system cause the computer system to correlate locations of said pixels in said image file with locations of the alphanumeric characters corresponding to said pixels in the original document containing said alphanumeric characters.

19. The media of claim 18, wherein said pixels'"'"' locations within said image file at least substantially correspond to locations of said corresponding alphanumeric characters in said original document.

20. The media of claim 18, wherein said pixels'"'"' locations within said image file are substantially the same as locations of said corresponding alphanumeric characters in said original document.

21. The media of claim 1 further comprising instructions that when executed by the computer system cause the computer system to transmit at least a region of said image file from a server to a client.

22. The media of claim 1 further comprising instructions that when executed by the computer system cause the computer system to request a region of said image file from a server by a client.

23. The media of claim 22 further comprising instructions that when executed by the computer system cause the computer system to send said requested region of said image file by said server.

24. The media of claim 23 wherein said sending comprises transmitting compressed data suitable for decoding by said client.

25. An apparatus including a software program and a processor configured to operate under instructions of the software program, the software program causing the apparatus to perform actions, the actions comprising:

converting, with the processor, data identifying each of a plurality of textual characters from an original document into a corresponding pixel characteristic data value of a plurality of pixel characteristic data values; and

forming, with the processor, an image file with pixels having said respective pixel characteristic data values, wherein each pixel of the pixels corresponds to a unique textual character of the plurality of textual characters.

26. One or more tangible computer storage media comprising computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computing system having a processor and memory, cause the computing system to:

convert ASCII data identifying a plurality of textual characters of an original textual document into a plurality of pixel characteristic data values, wherein ASCII data for each of the plurality of textual characters is converted to a corresponding pixel characteristic data value of the plurality of pixel characteristic data values;

form an image file with pixels having said respective pixel characteristic data values, wherein the location within the image file of each of the pixels substantially corresponds to a location of a corresponding textual character in the original document, wherein upon display, the pixels of the image file differ from the plurality textual characters of the original document; and

transmit at least a portion of the image file to a client, wherein the image file is decoded by a processor into the textual characters of the original textual document for viewing by the client.