Patent ID: 6963880

Claim:
A method of converting linearized images, the method comprising the steps of: accessing a data structure that holds an image of an object of a root object class and an image of an object of a particular object subclass of the root object class; wherein said data structure is defined by metadata as an array with elements, each element of the array belonging to said root object class, each image in the data structure representing an element of the array; for each image in the data structure, determining whether said each image represents an object belonging to a particular version of said root object class or to a particular version of a particular subclass of the root object class; when said each image represents a particular version of said root object class, then: examining the metadata to determine one or more changes made to said root object class between the particular version of said root object class and a second version of said root object class, and generating a target image for said each image based on the one or more changes made to said root object class between the particular version of said root object class and a second version of said root object class; when said each image represents a particular version of the particular subclass, then: examining the metadata to determine one or more changes made to said particular subclass between the particular version of said particular subclass and a second version of said particular subclass, and generating a target image for said each image based on the one or more changes made to said particular subclass between the particular version of said particular subclass and a second version of said particular subclass, wherein at least one image in said data structure includes a type identifier that identifies the object class of said image, and wherein the step of determining whether said each image represents an object belonging to a particular version is based on the type identifier included in the at least one image.