System for managing tiled images using multiple resolutions
AssigneeOptigraphics Corporation
InventorsJohn R. DeAguiar, Ross M. Larkin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image memory management system for tiled images. The system defines an address space for a virtual memory that includes an image data cache and a disk. An image stack for each source image is stored as a full resolution image and a set of lower-resolution subimages. Each tile of an image may exist in one or more of five different states as follows: uncompressed and resident in the image data cache, compressed and resident in the image data cache, uncompressed and resident on disk, compressed and resident on disk and not loaded but re-creatable using data from higher-resolution image tiles.
Claims39
An image memory management system, comprising:
- a computer having a processor and an image memory, the image memory comprising a main memory and a secondary memory;
- an image stack, located in the image memory, comprising a plurality of similar digital images, each digital image having a plurality of pixels grouped into at least one tile, and each digital image having a resolution different from the other digital images;
- means for accessing a selected one of the tiles in the image stack;
- first means for transferring a selected one of the tiles from the secondary memory to the main memory when the tile is accessed by the accessing means and the tile is absent from the main memory;
- and
- second means for transferring a selected one of the tiles from the main memory to the secondary memory when the main memory is full.
A method of managing images in a computer system having a processor and an image memory comprising a slower access memory and a faster access memory, comprising the steps of:
- creating a digital image;
- resampling the digital image so as to form an image stack comprising the digital image and one or more lower resolution digital images;
- dividing each image into equal sized, rectangular tiles;
- and
- evaluating a location in the image memory of tiles in each digital image of the image stack in a given region of interest.
An image memory management system, comprising:
- a computer system having a processor, a main memory and a secondary memory;
- an image stack, comprising plural digital images, each digital image divided into at least one region, at least two of said digital images having different resolutions;
- a selector which selects one of said regions;
- a list identifying regions in said main memory;
- a sensor determining when said main memory is full;
- a data exchanger responsive to said selector, said list and said sensor to move said one region from the secondary memory to the main memory when said region is selected by said selector and said list indicates that the region is absent from the main memory, and to move regions from the main memory to the secondary memory when said sensor indicates that the main memory is full.
A method of managing images in a computer system comprising the steps of:
- resampling a digital image to form an image stack comprising plural digital images of differing resolutions, wherein each digital image is displayable independent of the other images of the image stack;
- selecting an image resolution;
- and
- selecting an image from said image stack for display, based on said selected image resolution.
A method of managing images in a computer system comprising the steps of:
- accessing a digital image;
- resampling the digital image so as to form an image stack comprising the digital image and one or more lower resolution digital images, wherein each digital image is displayable independent of the other images of the image stack;
- and
- selecting a portion of one of the digital images in the image stack for
- display.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.