The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 26, 1995
Filed:
Sep. 03, 1992
Russ Campbell, Boise, ID (US);
Gary Zimmerman, Boise, ID (US);
Thomas G Berge, Boise, ID (US);
Terry M Nelson, Boise, ID (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A peripheral unit converts an input data flow to page-arranged outputs and includes a random access memory capacity that is insufficient in size to accommodate an entire page of raster data. The peripheral unit also includes a processor and a control memory that holds a plurality of data compression procedures, each procedure exhibiting a different performance characteristic. The peripheral unit performs a method for compressing portions of the input data flow that includes the steps of: allocating the random access memory to portions of the input data flow; determining when an insufficient amount of random access memory is available for such allocation; employing a first data compression procedure on the input data flow portions to produce a compressed data portion; testing the compressed data portion to determine if a level of compression has been achieved that exceeds a threshold and, if not, employing succeeding data compression procedures and repeating the test for each procedure against a threshold, whereby the compression procedure that first enables a threshold level of compression to be achieved is the compression procedure employed to compress the data flow portion. Improved compression methods and techniques for handling input data flows with both integral and independent image descriptors are also described.