Method and apparatus for visual lossless image syntactic encoding

A method of generating visual perception thresholds for image processing implemented by one or more elements of a video encoding device, the method comprising:

• analyzing details of frames of a video signal;
• estimating parameters of said details;
• and
• defining a visual perception threshold for each of said details in accordance with said estimated detail parameters,
• wherein said estimating comprises at least one of the following:
• determining a per-pixel signal intensity change between a current frame and a previous frame, normalized by a maximum intensity;
• determining a normalized volume of intraframe change by high frequency filtering of said current frame, summing the intensities of said filtered frame and normalizing the resultant sum by the a maximum possible amount of information within a frame;
• generating a volume of inter-frame changes between a said current frame and its said previous frame normalized by said maximum possible amount of information volume within a frame;
• generating a normalized volume of inter-frame changes for a group of pictures frames from the output of said previous step of generating;
• evaluating a signal-to-noise ratio by high pass filtering a difference frame between said current frame and its said previous frame by selecting those intensities of said difference frame lower than a threshold defined as three times a noise level under which noise intensities are not perceptible to the human eye, summing the intensities of the pixels in the filtered difference frame and normalizing said sum by said maximum intensity and by the a total number of pixels in a frame;
• generating a normalized intensity value per-pixel;
• generating a per-pixel color saturation level;
• generating a per-pixel hue value;
• and
• determining a per-pixel response to said hue value.

A method for describing an image implemeneted by one or more elements of a video encoding device, the method comprising

• determining which details in said image can be distinguished by the human eye and which ones can only be detected by it;
• providing one bit to describe a pixel which can only be detected by the human eye;
• and
• providing three bits to describe a pixel which can be distinguished by the human eye.

A video compression system comprising:

• means for analyzing one or more details associated with one or more frames of a video signal;
• means for estimating parameters of individual analyzed details;
• and
• means for defining a visual perception threshold for individual analyzed details in accordance with at least one of the estimated parameters,
• wherein said means for estimating comprises at least one of:
• means for determining a per-pixel signal intensity change between a current frame and a previous frame, normalized by a maximum intensity;
• means for determining a normalized volume of intraframe change by high frequency filtering of said current frame, summing the intensities of said filtered frame and normalizing the resultant sum by a maximum possible amount of information within a frame;
• means for generating a volume of inter-frame changes between said current frame and said previous frame normalized by said maximum possible amount of information within a frame;
• means for generating a normalized volume of inter-frame changes within a group of frames normalized by said maximum possible amount of information within a frame and by a number of frames comprising said group of frames;
• means for evaluating a signal-to-noise ratio by high pass filtering a difference frame between said current frame and said previous frame by selecting intensities of said difference frame lower than a threshold defined as three times a noise level under which noise intensities are not visually perceptible, summing the intensities of pixels in the filtered difference frame and normalizing said sum by said maximum intensity and by the total number of pixels in a frame;
• means for generating a normalized intensity value per-pixel;
• means for generating a per-pixel color saturation level;
• means for generating a per-pixel hue value;
• or
• means for determining a per-pixel response to said hue value.

A method implemented by one or more elements of a video encoding device comprising:

• identifying one or more distinguishable details in an image, individual distinguishable details being associated with a contrast level at which a pixel can be visually distinguished from among its neighboring pixels;
• using a plurality of bits to describe individual identified distinguishable details;
• and
• using less than said plurality of bits to describe one or more individual details in the image not identified as distinguishable.

A system comprising:

• means for identifying one or more distinguishable details in an image, individual distinguishable details being associated with a contrast level at which a pixel can be visually distinguished from among its neighboring pixels;
• means for using a plurality of bits to describe individual identified distinguishable details;
• and
• means for using less than said plurality of bits to describe one or more individual details in the image not identified as distinguishable.