Patent ID: 7127118

Claim:
A method of transmuting (i) image data, meaning data representing an image, in the form of pixels having both positional point coordinates and color values, into (ii) another form of data representing the same image, for purposes including image display, the method comprising: from the image data, defining contour data representing the image in terms of points on contours connecting multiple points each of which points has the same color value to within a predetermined tolerance, the total number of different contours being determined as the minimum required to provide an interpolated fit between contours that will keep error in any visual representation of the image from the contour data below a predetermined threshold error; and displaying the image from the contour data; wherein by action of the defining the image data in the form of pixels is transmuted into a new from of data, called contour data, having the form of contours each of which connects multiple points having the same color value to within the predetermined tolerance; wherein insofar as some image points of identical color values need not both appear on any contours, then the contour data is first-abbreviated, or first-compressed, from the image data from which it is derived.