Patent Document ID: 7590296
Application ID: 11238703
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An image predictive coding apparatus comprising: a prediction unit that performs an inter prediction process using an inter prediction unit or an intra prediction process using an intra prediction unit, and creates predicted image data; a locally decoding unit, including an inverse quantization unit, an inverse transform unit and an adder, that creates a locally decoded image by synthesizing input image data, which is quantized and inverse-quantized, and the predicted image data, and supplies the locally decoded image to the prediction unit; an image characteristic determination unit that divides input image data, which is not yet processed by the prediction unit and the locally decoding unit, into image blocks each including a plurality of pixels, and determines a characteristic to represent uniformity or complexity of each image block; a filter unit that performs a filtering process on each image block in the locally decoded image; a control unit that controls the filter unit according to a determination result of the image characteristic determination unit so that different filtering properties are set in a first image region corresponding to image blocks having the characteristic of uniformity and a second image region corresponding to image blocks having the characteristic of complexity when the filter unit performs the filtering process on the locally decoded image corresponding to the input image data determined by the image characteristic determination unit; a slice construction unit that constructs at least two slices corresponding to the first image region and the second image region, wherein the slice means a unit of filtering in the filter unit, and each slice includes one or more of the image blocks; and a filter setting unit that sets a strength of filtering in the filter unit, wherein the control unit causes the filter setting unit to set a different strength of filtering in the filter unit for each slice constructed by the slice construction unit.