Patent ID: 8665950

Claim:
A method of decoding image, the method comprising: extracting from a bitstream information that indicates an intra prediction mode applied to a current prediction unit to be decoded; determining reference pixels from among neighboring pixels adjacent to the current prediction unit and filtered neighboring pixels filtered from the neighboring pixels, based on a size of the current prediction unit and an intra prediction mode of the current prediction unit; performing intra prediction in the intra prediction mode on the current prediction unit using the extracted information and the determined reference pixels, wherein the image is hierarchically split from a plurality of maximum coding units, according to information about a maximum size of a coding units, 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 is split into coding units of a lower depth, independently from neighboring coding units, and wherein the coding unit of the current depth is split into at least one prediction unit.