Patent ID: RE43061

Claim:
A method for encoding interlaced texture information on a texture macroblock basis through a motion estimation between a current VOP and its one or more reference VOP's, wherein each texture macroblock of the current and the reference VOP's has M×N defined or undefined texture pixels, M and N being positive even integers, respectively, the method comprising the steps of: (a) detecting whether said each texture macroblock of each reference VOP is a boundary block or not, wherein the boundary block has at least one defined texture pixel and at least one undefined texture pixel; (b) dividing the boundary block into two field blocks, each field block having M/2×N texture pixels; (c) extrapolating the undefined texture pixels of each field block based on the defined texture pixels thereof to generate an extrapolated boundary block for said two field blocks; (d) if the boundary block has an undefined field block and a defined field block, padding the undefined field block based on the defined field block, wherein the undefined field block and the defined field block represent one field block having the undefined texture pixels only and the other field block having at least one defined texture pixel, respectively; and (f) expanding an undefined adjacent block based on the extrapolated boundary block, wherein the undefined adjacent block is adjacent to the extrapolated boundary block and has only undefined texture pixels, wherein the step (c) further includes the step of (c1) field-padding said at least one undefined texture pixel in a field block from said at least one defined texture pixel therein, to thereby generate a padded field block for the field block, wherein the step (c1) has the steps of: (c11) row-padding said at least one undefined texture pixel on a row-by-row basis to generate a padded row; and (c12) padding, if there exists a transparent row, the transparent row from at least one nearest padded row, wherein the transparent row represents a row having the undefined texture pixels only.