Patent ID: 6975742

Claim:
A method of image compression, said method comprising the steps of: (a) digitizing an image into a plurality of pixels; (b) sampling a block of pixels from the digitized image; (c) segmenting the block of pixels into a plurality of layers in accordance with a first segmentation algorithm to generate a first segmented sample; (d) segmenting the block of pixels into a plurality of layers in accordance with a second segmentation algorithm to generate a second segmented sample, said second segmentation algorithm being different than the first segmentation algorithm; (e) compressing the first and second segmented samples to generate first and second compressed image samples respectively; (f) determining a bit rate for the first and second compressed image samples; (g) determining how much image distortion results from each compression; and, (h) selecting the segmenting from steps (c) and (d) which resulted in an optimal compromise between the bit rate and distortion determined in steps (f) and (g).