Patent ID: 7027655

Claim:
A method of digital image compression, comprising: identifying a plurality of areas of interest in a subset of digital images in a sequence of related images; extrapolating areas of interest for a remainder of images in the sequence from the identified areas of interest; using a histogram to determine most popular identified area of interest; and encoding the most popular identified areas of interest at a first quality level and unidentified areas of the image at a second and lower quality level than the most popular identified areas in order to produce a single compressed copy of each image which can be decoded at a decoder, wherein: a size of the identified areas of interest corresponds to an angular coverage of an average human fovea at a predetermined viewing distance; the areas of interest are identified by a group of viewers; and said group of viewers comprises a statistically representative subset of an intended audience for the sequence of related images in order to predict areas of interest of the intended audience.