Patent ID: 8446953

Claim:
A method of decoding an image, the method comprising: extracting from a bitstream information that indicates an intra prediction mode applied to a current block to be decoded; and performing intra prediction on the current block according to the intra prediction mode indicated by the extracted information, wherein the intra prediction mode indicates the intra prediction for a current pixel located at a position (i,j) of the current block, where i and j are integers, the intra prediction comprising: determining one of (i) a left neighboring pixel of a first previous block adjacent to a left side of the current block and decoded prior to the current block and (ii) an up neighboring pixel of a second previous block adjacent to an upper side of the current block and decoded prior to the current block, the left neighboring pixel determined based on j*dy>>n and the up neighboring pixel determined based on i*dx>>m, where dx, dy, m, and n are integers; and performing the intra prediction using the determined one of the left neighboring pixel and the up neighboring pixel, wherein the image is hierarchically split from a plurality of maximum coding units, according to information about a maximum size of a coding unit, into coding units of coded depths according to depths, wherein a coding unit of a current depth is one of rectangular data units split from a coding unit of an upper depth, wherein the coding unit of the current depth is split into coding units of a lower depth, independently from neighboring coding units, and wherein coding units of a hierarchical structure comprise encoded coding units among the coding units split from a maximum coding unit.