SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMAGE COMPRESSION

摘要

A system and method for reducing the volume of data necessary to represent an image by utilizing tiling and masking techniques is disclosed. Initially, an image described by raster content having an original number of bits per pixel is provided. The image is divided into tiles such that each of the tiles represents a portion of the image. Then, for each of the tiles, the following steps are performed: (a) the colors in the tile are identified; (b) the required number of masks are compared to a threshold number of masks to determine if data reduction by using masks is worthwhile; (c) if the required number of masks is less than the threshold number of masks, a representation of the tile is generated using fills and/or masks; and (d) if the required number of masks is greater than or equal to the maximum number of masks, a representation for the tile using the original format and number of bits per pixel or a smaller index is generated.