Patent ID: 8849022

Claim:
A method of decoding an image, the method comprising: segmenting a second color component block of a current block into a plurality of segments based on pixel values of a first color component block of the current block; predicting a first segment among the plurality of segments based on a first pixel value of a second color component pixel that is adjacent to the first segment and included in a region decoded prior to the current block and predicting a second segment among the plurality of segments based on a second pixel value of a second color component pixel that is adjacent to the second segment and included in the region decoded prior to the current block; and decoding the second color component block based on the predicted first segment and the predicted second segment, wherein the current block is one of a coding unit among hierarchical coding units split from a maximum coding unit and a prediction unit split from the coding unit, and the maximum coding unit is one of maximum coding units generated by dividing an image.