Patent ID: 7020335

Claim:
A method of recognizing and compressing an image for transmission such that a requirement for transmission of the image is reduced while maintaining target-specific utility of said image, comprising: defining a first object class having a first object criteria that is at least partially related to the target-specific utility of said image; recognizing an object within said image as a member of said first object class if said object substantially meets said first object criteria of said first object class; decomposing said image into a plurality of subbands; providing to each of said multiple subbands a mapping of the region of said image having said object recognized as a member of said first object class; creating for each of said multiple subbands a first subband class sequence corresponding to said region of said image having said object recognized as a member of said first object class and a second subband class corresponding to regions of said image not having said object recognized as a member of said first object class; normalizing said first and said second subband class sequences; and encoding said normalized first subband class sequences at a first coding rate and encoding said normalized second subband class sequences at a second coding rate, wherein said first coding rate is higher than said second coding rate.