Image processing apparatus and method
AssigneeFuji Xerox Co., Ltd.
InventorShinichi Yada
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image process apparatus, for use with image data combining areas of different image characteristics such as text and photos, which achieves a predetermined target compression rate and simultaneously minimizes quality deterioration after decompression, is described. The image analysis circuit analyzes the composition of the entire image data and calculates the optimum compression parameter. The compression process is performed using a selected compression method for each predetermined block. At the time of compression, the value of the parameter is used in order to select an appropriate compression method by switching compression methods among a plurality of compression methods for each block unit. Using optimum compression minimizes the amount of memory required to store the information.
Claims18
An image processing apparatus, comprising:
- an image input apparatus to input image data related to an image composed of image portions having different image characteristics;
- an image data analyzer to analyze the image data in terms of pixel block units to discern the image portions having different image characteristics in the image, and the proportion of such portions with different image characteristics in the image;
- an image data compression apparatus having a plurality of different image compression methods;
- and
- a compression mode selector to select, for each pixel block unite an image data compression method from the plurality of different image compression methods based on a determination of the proportional amounts of such image portions having different image characteristics in the image.
An image processing method, comprising:
- receiving and converting digital data for an image composed of portions having different image characteristics;
- analyzing the digital image data in terms of pixel block units to discern the portions having different image characteristics in the image, and the proportion of such portions of different image characteristic in the image;
- and
- selecting, for each pixel block unit, an image data compression method from a plurality of different image data compression methods based on a determination of the proportional amounts of such portions having different image characteristics in the image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.