High resolution color video image acquisition and compression system

摘要

A digital color video image digitizing and communication process comprises the steps of dividing digital data representing the overall picture information for a video image into sets of data representing shape and color information for blocks of the image with the color information including the major colors for the corresponding block and the variation in shades or hues of the colors within the block, separating, according to a predefined encoding procedure, each of the data sets into a first group of data representing the major colors constituting the block and a second group of data comprising the remaining data in the data sets and representing the shades of the major colors within the block, storing the second group of data in a color table, processing the second group of data and transmitting the first group of data and the processed second group of data to a decoder capable of processing received data according to a predefined decoding procedure, processing the received first data group to display the encoded image in its major colors, and combining the first group of data with the selected data from the second data group and processing the combined data to display the encoded video image with the variations in shades of the major colors. The digitizing process is adapted to operate in a plurality of modes incorporating different encoding/decoding procedures and provides high resolution digitizing of color images while at the same time providing the capability of controlling the degree of compression at the encoding end as well as the decoding end, thereby making it suited to a variety of color image digitizing applications.