Image data processing of correlated images

A method for encoding data representative of a sequence of images which includes correlated images, comprising:

• (a) digitizing each image in the sequence of images to form a sequence of arrays of source image data, each array of source image data being representative of a corresponding one of the images of the sequence;
• (b) partitioning each array of source image data into a plurality of source image-data blocks, each source image-data block having source image-data elements, each source image-data element of a block being indexably associated with a unique block data-element index, corresponding source image-data blocks associated in turn with each array of the sequence of arrays of source image data defining a sequence of source image-data blocks, the sequences of source image-data blocks so defined being equal in number to the number of source image-data blocks into which each array is partitioned;
• (c) for each sequence of source image-data blocks, deriving at least one prototypical image-data block from at least a portion of the source image data of the sequence, each prototypical image-data block having prototypical image-data elements, each prototypical image-data element being indexably associated with one of the block data-element indices;
• (d) for each source image-data block in each sequence of source image-data blocks, determining an associated translation coefficient and a number of associated scaling coefficients equal to the number of prototypical image-data blocks associated with the sequence, the scaling coefficients and the translation coefficient respectively having values to at least approximately minimize a first sum of squared summands, each summand being indexably associated with one of the block data-element indices and being the square in sum of the translation coefficient plus a second sum of each of the scaling coefficients in turn multiplied by an element indexably associated with the summand block data-element index of the prototypical image-data block associated with the scaling coefficient minus an element indexably associated with the summand block data-element index of the source image-data block, the first sum being taken over all of the block data-element indices of the source image-data block;
• (e) for each source image-data block in each sequence of source image-data blocks, forming a corresponding difference image-data block having difference image-data elements, each difference image-data element being indexably associated with one of the block data-element indices which defines a difference-element index, each difference image-data element being derived from an element indexably associated with the difference-element index of the source image-data block minus the translation coefficient associated with the source image-data block minus the sum in turn of each scaling coefficient associated with the source image-data block multiplied by the element indexably associated with the difference-element index of the prototypical image-data block associated with the scaling coefficient;
• (f) subjecting each difference image-data block to an image-data-compression procedure to form a set of data-compression-encoded difference image-data elements;
• and
• (g) storing each set of data-compression-encoded difference image-data elements in digital storage in association with the scaling coefficients and the translation coefficient associated with the corresponding source image-data block.