Patent ID: 7676082

Claim:
A method of compressing image Bayer pattern pixel data acquired by a digital image sensor to be successively processed to a full color image, within an image processor, through color interpolation of each pixel of the full color image, the method comprising: within an image divider of the image processor, dividing the Bayer data in three channels of pixel data including a channel for each basic color filtered pixels of the image; within a data compressor of the image processor, separately compressing each channel data according to a compression process comprising for each color channel, gathering Bayer pattern pixel values for processing by pairs, each pair including two successive pixels belonging to a same channel along a image pixel scanning direction, each pair of values representing a currently processed input vector, calculating a predictor vector of the input vector based upon differences between the values defining the input vector and a pair of prediction values representing a prediction error, quantizing each calculated predictor vector according to one of a heavier and lighter degree of quantization depending on whether the predictor vector is representative of an area of relatively uniform color of the image or an area of relatively abrupt changes of colors of the image, and generating a multibit code representative of the quantized predictor vector of the input vector based upon a compression ratio.