Patent ID: 7046250

Claim:
A method for reducing the storage or bandwidth requirements of a graphics image or reducing CPU usage in a computer system, the method comprising: recording a text command executed to create a portion of the graphics image; using said text command to update a data structure with information; compressing one or more sub-images of the graphics image using a compression scheme, each of said sub-images having a location, said location and said compression scheme for each of said sub-images chosen based on said information in said data structure, wherein; said data structure identifies the portion of the graphics image that was created with a specific drawing command, further wherein; said data structure includes a list specifying text regions, text strings, character set identifiers, and/or colors; determining if a set of character images compatible with a set of character images utilized in the text command already exists in a cache; adding the set of character images utilized in the text command to a display computer cache if the set of character images utilized in the text command does not already exist in a cache; and utilizing said set of character images to display said one or more sub-images of the graphics image created using the text command, wherein said adding the set of character images utilized in the text command includes: determining if there is enough room in said cache on said display computer for the set of character images; removing cache entries until there is enough room in said cache, if there is not enough room in said cache on said display computer for the set of character images; sending a request to said display computer to create one or more new cache entries for the set of character images; and adding the set of character images to a list of sets of character images currently cached on said display computer.