Method of disregarding changes in data in a location of a data structure based upon changes in data in nearby locations

摘要

A method for filtering data to be compressed by frame differencing is disclosed. In applications where large amounts of data must be either stored or transmitted, such as, for example, digital image data, various techniques are used to compress the data. One such technique is frame differencing wherein after a reference frame or key is encoded, only the differences between each frame and the immediately preceding frame in the sequence are encoded. The present invention operates as a pre-process or in conjunction with such a technique by determining which of the changed data points can be disregarded without significantly affecting, for example, the stored image, thereby reducing the amount of data which must be stored or transmitted. The determination is made in the present invention by comparing the pattern of changed data points in the vicinity of the data point under consideration with a set of pre-determined patterns.