Method and System for Error Resilient Compression and Decompression of Computed Tomography Data

A data-transferring slip ring system comprising:

• a data compressor positioned on a rotating platform, the data compressor having input and output and configured to be operably connectable to and to receive data at the input from a data generator, said data compressor including a predictor unit, an entropy encoder unit, and an error protector unit, wherein said predictor unit, entropy encoder unit, an error protector unit are adapted to be in data-transfer communication with one another;
• a data decompressor positioned on a stationary platform and configured to be operably connectable to a target;
• and
• a slip ring operably connecting and configured to transfer data between the output of said data compressor and said data decompressor,
• wherein said predictor unit includes means for processing data, received at the input, in groups of data pixels and means for predicting data to be compressed based on (i) F previously stored data frames and (ii) one or more coordinates of data pixels within said data frames expressed as a coordinate vector V encoded as a positive integer;
• wherein said entropy encoder unit is adapted to encode the data to be compressed as predicted by the predictor unit;
• and
• wherein said error protection unit is adapted (i) to embed error-protection code into the encoded data to protect one or more of an encoding parameter Kmin, of the Golomb-Rice encoding for which a minimal encoding size is achieved, an index Fmin of a reference data frame, and a coordinate offset vector Vmin corresponding to said reference frame and (ii) to transfer the data with embedded error correction code to the output.

A data-transferring slip-ring system comprising:

• a data compressor positioned on a rotating platform, the data compressor having input and output and configured to be operably connectable to and to receive data at the input from a data generator, said data compressor including a predictor unit, an entropy encoder unit, and an error protector unit, wherein said predictor unit, entropy encoder unit, an error protector unit are adapted to be in data-transfer communication with one another;
• a data decompressor positioned on a stationary platform and configured to be operably connectable to a target;
• and
• a slip ring operably connecting and configured to transfer data between the output of said data compressor and said data decompressor,
• wherein said predictor unit includes means for processing data, received at the input, in groups of data pixels and means for predicting data to be compressed based on (i) F data frames previously received by the data compressor and (ii) one or more coordinates of data pixels within said data frames expressed as a coordinate vector V encoded as a positive integer;
• wherein said entropy encoder unit is adapted to encode the data to be compressed as predicted by the predictor unit;
• and
• wherein said error protection unit is adapted to transfer the encoded data to the output.

A data compressor for a data-transferring slip-ring system, the data compressor positioned on a rotating platform, having input and output and configured to be operably connectable to and to receive data at the input from a data generator, said data compressor including a predictor unit, an entropy encoder unit, and an error protector unit, wherein said predictor unit, entropy encoder unit, an error protector unit are adapted to be in data-transfer communication with one another, the slip ring system including

• a data decompressor positioned on a stationary platform and configured to be operably connectable to a target;
• and
• a slip ring operably connecting and configured to transfer data between the output of said data compressor and said data decompressor,
• wherein said predictor unit includes means for processing data, received at the input, in groups of data pixels and means for predicting data to be compressed based on (i) F previously stored data frames and (ii) one or more coordinates of data pixels within said data frames expressed as a coordinate vector V encoded as a positive integer;
• wherein said entropy encoder unit is adapted to encode the data to be compressed as predicted by the predictor unit;
• and
• wherein said error protection unit is adapted (i) to embed error-protection code into the encoded data to protect one or more of an encoding parameter Kmin, of the Golomb-Rice encoding for which a minimal encoding size is achieved, an index Fmin of a reference data frame, and a coordinate offset vector Vmin corresponding to said reference frame and (ii) to transfer the data with embedded error correction code to the output.

A data decompressor for a data-transferring slip ring system, the data decompressor positioned on a stationary platform and configured to be operably connectable to a target, the slip ring system including

• a data compressor positioned on a rotating platform, the data compressor having input and output and configured to be operably connectable to and to receive data at the input from a data generator, said data compressor including a predictor unit, an entropy encoder unit, and an error protector unit, wherein said predictor unit, entropy encoder unit, an error protector unit are adapted to be in data-transfer communication with one another;
• and
• a slip ring operably connecting and configured to transfer data between the output of said data compressor and said data decompressor,
• wherein said predictor unit includes means for processing data, received at the input, in groups of data pixels and means for predicting data to be compressed based on (i) F previously stored data frames and (ii) one or more coordinates of data pixels within said data frames expressed as a coordinate vector V encoded as a positive integer;
• wherein said entropy encoder unit is adapted to encode the data to be compressed as predicted by the predictor unit;
• and
• wherein said error protection unit is adapted (i) to embed error-protection code into the encoded data to protect one or more of an encoding parameter Kmin, of the Golomb-Rice encoding for which a minimal encoding size is achieved, an index Fmin of a reference data frame, and a coordinate offset vector Vmin corresponding to said reference frame and (ii) to transfer the data with embedded error correction code to the output.

A method for compressing sampled analog data comprising:

• receiving and processing, with a data processing system, data in the form of pixels, said data pixels associated with an image frame and locations within the image frame;
• predicting data based on a reference to one or more of F previously stored image frames and one or more of multiple coordinates within such image frames expressed with a vector V that is encoded as a positive integer;
• encoding the predicted data with by an entropy encoder;
• error-protecting at least a part of so encoded data and transferring a subset of encoided data with error correction code including one or more of an encoding parameter Kmin, of the Golomb-Rice encoding for which a minimal encoding size is achieved, an index Fmin of a reference data frame, and a coordinate offset vector Vmin corresponding to said reference frame.

A method for compressing sampled analog data comprising:

• receiving and processing, with a data processing system, data in the form of pixels associated with a given image frame and locations within the image frame;
• predicting data based on a reference to one or more of F previously stored frames and one or more of multiple potential coordinates within such image frames expressed with a vector V that is encoded as a positive integer;
• encoding the predicted data with an entropy encoder;
• and error-protecting at least a part of the encoded data.