Patent ID: 8311353

Claim:
A method of compressing a block of multiple pixels each comprising a respective depth value, said method comprising the steps of: selecting a start depth value of the multiple depth values in said block, said start depth value belonging to a first depth value plane; selecting a restart depth value of said multiple depths values in said block, said restart depth value belonging to a second depth value plane; generating, for at least a portion of said multiple pixels, a respective plane representation indicative of which plane of said first and second depth value planes said at least a portion of said multiple pixels belong to; selecting, for at least one pixel in said block, a pixel set to comprise a first neighboring pixel present in a first prediction direction in said block relative said at least one pixel and a second pixel in said first prediction direction if said first neighboring pixel and said second pixel belong to a same depth value plane as said at least one pixel as determined based on said plane representations; providing a prediction of a depth value of said at least one pixel based on the at least one depth value of said selected pixel set; estimating a prediction error based on said depth value of said at least one pixel and said prediction; and determining an encoded representation of said prediction error, wherein a compressed representation of said block comprises a representation of said start depth value, a representation of said restart value and said encoded representation of said prediction error.