Patent ID: 7277489

Claim:
A method of two-dimensional discrete wavelet transforming of an image, the method comprising the steps of: forming the image into a plurality of blocks, there being a first plurality of blocks spanning a first dimension of the image and a second plurality of blocks spanning a second dimension of the image, each block comprising a plurality of pixels in each dimension; and processing the blocks in raster order by two-dimensional discrete wavelet transforming a current block of pixels to generate a corresponding current output block of subband data before either a one-dimensional discrete wavelet row or column transformation of a next block of pixels is completed, said transforming step including using intermediate lifting values of a plurality of previous output blocks of subband data, the intermediate lifting values comprising: HL and HH two-dimensional subband data of a previous output block of subband data corresponding to a block of pixels in the same row as the current block and adjacent thereto; L and H one-dimensional column subband data of the previous output block of subband data corresponding to the block of pixels in the same row as the current block of pixels and adjacent thereto; and first and second H one-dimensional column subband data of a previous output block of subband data corresponding to a block of pixels in the same column as the current block of pixels and adjacent thereto.