Patent · US Expired

Method and system of decoding compressed image data

US6259810A · kind A · utility

75Cited by
15References
39Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 15, 1997
Grant dateJul 10, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 15, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T9/005
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and system of encoding and decoding image data in images having less than 128 distinct colors. Eight bit data bytes representing the color of each pixel data are re-indexed for each pixel to seven or less bits, and a sub-palette stores the relationship between the re-indexed colors and the original eight-bit color values. The remaining bits in the byte store run lengths of pixels that have contiguous colors. Further data compression is achieved by grouping pixels into rows, eliminating any duplicate rows and identifying the pixel data by a series of row pointers. Still further compression is accomplished by dropping representations of transparent pixels from the end of rows and representing a number of transparent pixels at the beginning of rows with a single byte. The compressed data is efficiently decoded using the row pointers to expedite vertical clipping of the image and adjusting horizontal clipping for leading and trailing transparent pixels.

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