Patent ID: 7068398
Filing Date: 2006-06-27
Classification: H03M

Abstract:
1. A method for compressing image data, comprising the steps of: identifying a plurality of image tiles within a composite image data set, wherein a mask data value indicating whether the pixel contains one of continuous tone image data or linework image data and a valid data value indicating whether the pixel contains any data at all are associated; characterizing an image data group within at least one image tile within the plurality of image tiles as one of linework image data if an aggregation of valid data values associated with pixels within the image data group is equal to true and an aggregation of mask data values associated with pixels within the image data group is equal to false or continuous tone image data; and encoding the image data group for at least the one image tile, wherein the image data group is encoded by an encoding algorithm selected based upon the characterization of the image data group.