Patent ID: 6909746

Claim:
A method of compressing a video or image, comprising the steps of: defining a configuration space that models an optimal bit allocation problem of a data compression process, the configuration space defining nodes and transitions between the nodes, the nodes corresponding to a selection of respective quantizers for respective features of a data stream, a path defined by a set of transitions each connected at respective ones of said nodes to another one of said set of transitions, said path joining a start node and an end node and having a total cost corresponding to a sum of costs of said transitions of said set of transitions; propagating least-cost waves through said configuration space by budding, responsively to a space-variant metric, such that a first path of lowest found cost is identified through said configuration space joining said start node and said end node; and applying the quantizers corresponding to said nodes lying on said first path to a first set of data to be compressed by said data compression process.