Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for combining palettes of color quantized images

US5459486A · kind A · utility

17Cited by
3References
4Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 18, 1994
Grant dateOct 17, 1995
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 18, 2014

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG09G5/06
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A color-mapped display sub,stem efficiently combines palettes of multiple images into a single shared palette. As each image already received a degree of distortion during conventional palette selection, it is desirable to minimize further distortion during the palette combination method of this invention. A pairwise nearest neighbor (PNN) technique is used for combining colors from respective palettes to minimize further distortion. For a final 256-color shared palette, up to 256 (n-1) individual vector merges are performed (where n is the number of image palettes being combined). In one embodiment, two vectors are chosen at each step that yield the lowest increase in distortion when merged. A mean squared error distortion measure of gamma-corrected values defined in YIQ space is used to compare distortion. Searching time at each step is reduced from O(N.sup.2) to O(N), while also eliminating the need for extensive recalculation of color pair distortions between steps. Efficiency is enhanced because the matrix effectively caches distortion calculations between steps. One advantage of the invention is the ability to service run-time demands for the simultaneous display of multiple …

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.