公开(公告)号：US06246797B1

公开(公告)日：2001-06-12

申请号：US09438666

申请日：1999-11-12

申请人： Jon S. Castor ,  Charles K. Chui

发明人： Jon S. Castor ,  Charles K. Chui

IPC分类号： G06K936

CPC分类号： H04N19/61 ,  H04N19/115 ,  H04N19/129 ,  H04N19/146 ,  H04N19/63

摘要： An image processing system stores image files in a memory device at a number of incremental quality levels. Each image file has an associated image quality (that is fidelity or resolution) level corresponding to a quality level at which the corresponding image has been encoded. The images are initially encoded by applying a predefined transform, such as a DCT transform or wavelet-like transform, to image data received from an image capture mechanism and then applying a data compression method to the transform data. The image is regenerated by successively applying a data decompression method and an inverse transform to an image file. Image file size reduction circuitry and one or more state machines are used to lower the quality level of a specified one of the image files, including circuitry for extracting a subset of the data in the specified image file and forming a lower quality version of the specified image file that occupies less space in the memory device than was previously occupied by the specified image data structure. As a result, the amount of space occupied by image files in the memory device can be reduced so as to make room for the storage of additional image files or to allow more rapid transmission in a restricted bandwidth environment.

摘要翻译： 图像处理系统以增加的质量级别将图像文件存储在存储器装置中。 每个图像文件具有对应于对应图像已被编码的质量等级的相关图像质量（即保真度或分辨率）。 最初通过将诸如DCT变换或小波变换之类的预定义变换应用于从图像捕捉机构接收的图像数据，然后将数据压缩方法应用于变换数据来对图像进行编码。 通过对图像文件连续应用数据解压缩方法和逆变换来再现图像。 使用图像文件大小缩小电路和一个或多个状态机来降低指定的一个图像文件的质量水平，包括用于提取指定图像文件中的数据子集的电路，并形成指定的图像文件的较低质量版本 图像文件占据了存储器设备中比以前由指定的图像数据结构占据的空间少的图像文件。 结果，可以减少存储装置中的图像文件占用的空间量，以便为附加图像文件的存储腾出空间，或者允许在有限带宽环境中进行更快速的传输。