Patent ID: 8837006

Claim:
In a digital image computing device, a method of pre-processing a digital image for improved data compression by exposing one or more common patterns in the digital image, the method comprising: receiving the digital image represented as a plurality of pixels, each pixel having at least a first color component and a second color component in interleaved sequence; separating the digital image and combining into at least a first planar data source and a second planar data source, wherein the digital image comprises one of: an RGB color space and an RGBA color space, the separating and combining comprising: splitting the first color component from each pixel of the plurality of pixels to yield a plurality of first color components; splitting the second color component from each pixel of the plurality of pixels to yield a plurality of second color components; combining the plurality of first color components in the first planar data source; and combining the plurality of second color components in the second planar data source; subsampling at least the first planar data source, comprising: selecting a subset of first color components of the plurality of first color components; averaging the values of the first color components of the selected subset; assigning the average value to each of the first color components of the selected subset to create a recognizable pattern for compression of first color components in the first planar data source; and storing the average value for each of the first color components of the selected subset prior to compression; modifying a chrominance value for a first color component of a first pixel to match a similar chrominance value for a second color component of a second pixel; and separately compressing the first planar data source and the second planar data source for more efficient compression than if the digital image were in a color channel interleaved form.