Patent ID: 8542936

Claim:
A picture encoding device comprising: a processor; a region division unit executable by the processor to divide an input picture into a plurality of regions; a division method selection unit executable by the processor to select a division method from among a plurality of division methods, the selected division method executable to select a target region from the plurality of regions; a division method encoding unit executable by the processor to encode information identifying the selected division method; a small region division unit executable by the processor to divide the target region into a plurality of small regions using the selected division method; a prediction unit executable by the processor to generate a prediction signal with respect to an original signal, the original signal in a small region included among the small regions; a residual signal generation unit executable by the processor to generate a residual signal representative of a difference between the prediction signal and the original signal in the small region; a transform unit executable by the processor to perform frequency transformation of the residual signal in the small region and generation of transform coefficients; a quantization unit executable by the processor to quantize the transform coefficients of the small region and generate quantized transform coefficients; a zero tree mapping unit executable by the processor to prepare a tree structure that is common to the plurality of division methods, the tree structure having a plurality of nodes and leaves, the zero tree mapping unit further executable by the processor to select a map from among a plurality of maps to map the quantized transform coefficients of the small region on leaves of the tree structure based on the selected map, and update a state of the nodes and leaves of the tree structure in accordance with the quantized transform coefficients mapped on the respective leaves, the map selected based on the attribute information of the small region; a zero tree encoding unit executable by the processor to perform entropy encoding of the state of the nodes and leaves of the tree structure with a probability model that is common to the plurality of division methods; a non-zero coefficient encoding unit executable by the processor to perform entropy encoding of non-zero quantized transform coefficients of the small region; and an output unit executable by the processor to output encoded data, the encoded data comprising identification of the selected division method, indication of the state of the nodes and leaves of the tree structure, and indication of the non-zero quantized transform coefficients of the small region.