Patent ID: 6928186

Claim:
A method for reducing an image to a given target size, comprising the steps of: (a) partitioning the image into a plurality of macroblocks, each macroblock containing a plurality of chrominance and luminance blocks, each chrominance block and each luminance block containing a first type of coefficient and a plurality of second type of coefficients; (b) to each macroblock, applying a first rule based on values of the first type of coefficient of the chrominance blocks in that macroblock to identify a particular type of texture in the image; (c) to each macroblock, applying a second rule based on select values of the second type of coefficient of luminance blocks in that macroblock to identify edges in the image; and (d) searching the macroblocks within the image to find an area containing an area of interest based on the results of applying the first and second rules in steps (b) and (c).