Patent ID: 6061475
Filing Date: 2000-05-09
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
A method for compressing pixel data from a digitized image represented by a series of scan lines, each line having a plurality of segments, each segment comprising a plurality of pixels having corresponding pixel amplitude values, comprising the steps of:setting a scan line segment's first pixel to be a first point and assigning to the first point an amplitude value equal to the first pixel's amplitude value and assigning to the first point's length value to a value associated only with the first point;selecting a next pixel of the scan line segment;calculating a slope between the amplitude value of the most recently set point for the selected pixel and the amplitude value of the selected pixel;predicting the amplitude value of a next subsequent pixel using the calculated slope;comparing an actual amplitude value of the next subsequent pixel with the predicted amplitude value;setting the selected pixel to be a next point if the value of the next subsequent pixel is not within a predetermined threshold range, the next point's amplitude value being assigned to be equal to the selected pixel's amplitude value and the next point's length value being assigned to be equal to the number of pixels from the most recently set point to the next point, and the minimum point length value being one; andrepeating the next pixel selecting, the slope calculating, and the amplitude value predicting steps if the value of the next subsequent pixel falls within the predetermined threshold range.