Patent ID: 7409096

Claim:
A method for processing data comprising the steps of: gradually processing progressively coded image data, for reconstructing an image, by successive increases of image resolution, in a plurality of directly consecutive decoding steps, thereby increasing data quantity of said image data loaded into a receiving data carrier; and calculating respective waiting times between respective points in time of said directly consecutive decoding steps using statistical image quality parameters as said image data are increasingly loaded, and suppressing decoding steps that do not result in an perceptible/noticeable improvement of said image resolution of said reconstructed image, by initializing a counter variable for the decoding steps by setting said counter variable to the value one, determining the percentage of a first minimum data guantity of the progressively coded image data to be loaded in said receiving data carrier for achieving a predetermined minimum guality at the beginning of said loading process, referenced to the total data guantity of said image data to be loaded into said receiving data carrier, and loading said first minimum partial guantity into said receiving data carrier, determining a waiting time for loading said first minimum data guantity by measuring a time span between starting of the loading process for loading said first minimum partial data guantity and a point in time of a first of said decoding steps, incrementing said counter variable for the individual decoding steps by one, determining a percentage of a minimum partial data guantity of said progressively coded image data to be loaded for achieving a next-higher predetermined minimum guality, referenced to said total data guantity, and loading data until said minimum partial data guantity has been loaded and a predetermined computation time has passed, said computation time being a function of said predetermined computation time for the preceding decoding step, determining the waiting time for loading each successive minimum partial data quantity by measuring the reguired computation time for loading each successive minimum partial data quantity from the point in time span of an immediately preceding decoding step to the point in time of a current decoding step, and repeating the above steps until said total image data guantity has been loaded.