Compression of captured images including light captured from locations on a device or object

Abstract

An imaging device captures images of a head-mounted display (HMD), or other object, including locators providing a pattern of light. The imaging device compresses captured images of the locators of the HMD by identifying pixels of a captured image having at least a threshold brightness and additional pixels within a threshold distance of the identified pixels. To generate a compressed image, the camera performs run-length encoding of pixels other than the identified pixels and additional pixels. The compressed image is provided by the imaging device to a console or other computing device. In some embodiments, the imaging device also determines whether a segment of adjacent pixels in a captured image is above the threshold brightness and sets the segment of adjacent pixels to a specific value and performs run-length encoding on the segment of adjacent pixels above the threshold brightness.