Patent · US Expired

Method and system for segment encoded graphic data compression

US5748904A · kind A · utility

179Cited by
2References
4Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateSep 13, 1996
Grant dateMay 5, 1998
Priority date
Expiry dateSep 13, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG09G2340/02
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and system for compressing graphic data by dividing the data into segments is disclosed. The size of the divided segment is programmable. A frame buffer partitioned into a compressed frame buffer and an uncompressed frame buffer stores graphic data. Each segment of the graphic data is compressed by three different algorithms that encode the graphic data as a plurality of code-words. Each code-word for the segment is taken from the algorithm that can compress the largest number of pixels in the code-word. A header is used to indicate the number of code-words and the compression method used in each code-word. The total number of bytes obtained from the compression of a segment is compared to a pre-defined limit to determine if the compression of the segment is successful. The successfully compressed data of a segment are written to the compressed frame buffer. A compression status flag buffer is used to identify if a segment is compressed or not. A decompressor decompresses or passes the graphic data to a pixel stream for display according to the compress status flag.

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