Patent ID: 7573478

Claim:
A method for compressing data representing an animation sequence of image frames, wherein a first one of the frames (F 1 frame) occurs before a second one of the frames (F 2 frame) and the F 2 frame occurs before a third one of the frames (F 3 frame) in the sequence, and wherein a sprite is included as first, second or third sprite having respective positions in the frames, the method comprising the steps of: a) generating a sprite image for the first sprite within the F 1 frame, wherein the generating includes: applying a sequence of masking operations, wherein a first one of the masks, as applied to the F 2 and F 3 frames, bounds the second and third sprites and not the first sprite, a second one of the masks, as applied to the F 1 and F 3 frames, bounds the first and third sprites and not the second sprite, and a third one of the masks, as applied to the F 1 and F 2 frames, bounds first and second sprites and not the third sprite; and applying flipping operations between the application of the first and second masks; and b) generating a translation path of the sprite image between the F 1 and F 2 image frames; and c) storing the sprite image and the translation path on computer readable media, along with a background image against which the sprite image translates, so that stored data representing the F 1 and F 2 frames for the animation sequence is compressed; and wherein the generating, applying and storing are performed by a processor.