Methods and apparatuses for hierarchically encoding and decoding a bytestream

An apparatus for reconstructing information that has been compressed from an encoded data set, comprising a processor configured to:

• decode the encoded data set, the encoded data set comprising a plurality of subsets, wherein each of the plurality of subsets is decoded to derive a series of data values for each subset;
• identify an order of the subsets, each subset describing a region the information that has been compressed;
• and
• reconstruct the information that has been compressed by:
• for each subset, determine the region of the information for which the data values of the each subset apply, determining the region based on a mapping order of the plurality of subsets to a corresponding region of the information that has been compressed;
• mapping each subset to the region of the grid according to the identified order of the subsets;
• and,
• mapping each data value of the each subset to locations in the region of the grid, such that the data values of the encoded data set are placed in a correct location in the grid to reconstruct the information that has been compressed.

A method of encoding information to be compressed into an encoded data set comprising a plurality of subsets, the method comprising:

• mapping each region of a grid to a plurality of subsets, having a defined order;
• mapping each data value of locations in each region of the grid to a respective subset, the each data value of locations in the each region corresponding to a particular subset of the plurality of subsets based on the defined order of the subsets;
• and
• encoding each of the plurality of subsets to encode the data values for each respective subset.

An apparatus for encoding information to be compressed into an encoded data set comprising a plurality of subsets, comprising a processor configured to:

• map each region of a grid to a plurality of subsets having a defined order;
• map each data value of locations in each region of the grid to a respective subset, the each data value of locations in the each region corresponding to a particular subset of the plurality of subsets based on the defined order of the subsets;
• and
• encode each of the plurality of subsets to encode the data values for each respective subset.