Patent ID: 8923396

Claim:
An apparatus for coding an image, the apparatus comprising: an input image segmentation unit configured to segment an input image into a plurality of image blocks; a waveform information generation unit configured to select reference pixels of a predetermined direction from pixels neighboring a target image block that is an image block to be coded among the plurality of image blocks, and generate waveform information that represents differences between the selected reference pixels; and a coding unit configured to code an image included in the target image block based on the waveform information; wherein the coding unit is further configured to generate prediction pixel values for pixels in the target image block based on the waveform information, and code a difference between each of the prediction pixel values and a corresponding pixel in the target image block; and the waveform information generation unit is further configured to select pixels from reference image blocks neighboring the target image block as the reference pixels of the predetermined direction, and generate the waveform information based on the selected pixels.