Method, system and computer program product for providing entropy constrained color splitting for palette images with pixel-wise splitting

摘要

A method, system and computer program product are provided for progressively encoding a digitized color image with M distinct colors allocated to a set of pixels using a data processing system, the digitized color image being provided by assigning each of the M distinct colors to at least one pixel in the set of pixels. This involves: (a) initializing a tree structure; (b) determining at least one representative color for each starting leaf node; and (c) growing the tree structure by (i) selecting a leaf node n to become a non-leaf node n linked to two new leaf nodes based on an associated achievable cost; (ii) creating the two new leaf nodes by allocating each pixel in n to one of the two new leaf nodes; (iii) determining a representative color for each of the two new leaf nodes; and (iv) encoding the index information associated with the leaf node n.