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:
May. 05, 2009
Filed:
May. 21, 2007
Tsuyoshi Kimura, Kanagawa, JP;
Tsuyoshi Kimura, Kanagawa, JP;
Sony Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
When image data to be encoded is divided into image data items in a plurality of hierarchies and an image data item in a given hierarchy among the divided image data items in the plurality of hierarchies is to be encoded as an intra picture, an image encoding apparatus and an image decoding apparatus provided by the invention allow improvement in efficiency of encoding the image data item in the given hierarchy. When input image data is divided into image data items in a plurality of hierarchies for encoding and a higher hierarchy image data item is to be encoded as an intra picture, a control circuit switches a switch so that reference data is supplied to a subtracting circuit. The subtracting circuit subtracts the reference data from the higher hierarchy image data item outputted from a preprocessing circuit. Encoding is performed on the subtraction result of the subtracting circuit, i.e. differential image data.