Patent ID: 8737750

Claim:
A method of compressing a pixel block comprising multiple pixels each having a respective pixel value comprising at least a first pixel value component and a second pixel value component, said method comprising: calculating, for each pixel of said multiple pixels except a defined starting pixel in said pixel block, a first prediction error based on a first pixel value component of said pixel and a first pixel value component of a respective prediction pixel; calculating, for each pixel of said multiple pixels except said defined starting pixel, a second prediction error based on said first pixel value component and a second pixel value component of said pixel and said first pixel value component and a second pixel value component of said respective prediction pixel; determining a first minimum number of symbols required for representing said first prediction errors calculated for each pixel of said multiple pixels except said defined starting pixel; determining a second minimum number of symbols required for representing said second prediction errors calculated for each pixel of said multiple pixels except said defined starting pixel; selecting, among a set of multiple different symbol configurations, a symbol configuration based on said first minimum number of symbols and said second minimum number of symbols, each symbol configuration of said set defines a respective first number of symbols maximally available for said first prediction errors and a respective second number of symbols maximally available for said second prediction errors; and storing, in a memory, a compressed representation of said pixel block comprising a configuration identifier of said selected symbol configuration, a representation of a pixel value of said defined starting pixel and, for each pixel of said multiple pixels except said defined starting pixel, a first representation of said first prediction error and a second representation of said second prediction error, said first representations have maximally a same number of symbols as said first number of symbols of said selected symbol configuration and said second representations have maximally a same number of symbols as said second number of symbols of said selected symbol configuration.