Importance

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Abstract

A method, system, and manufacture are provided, for use in connection with data processing and compression, for quantizing a string of data values, such as image data pixel values. The quantization is achieved by grouping the data values, based on their values, into a predetermined number of categories, each category containing the same total number of values. For each category, a value, preferably a mean value of those in the category, is selected as a quantization value. All of the data values in the category arc then represented by the selected quantization value. For data strings having a dependency (that is, the values of one or more of the data values provide information about values of other of the data values), the dependency is modeled by a method in which a modeling algorithm defines contexts in terms of a tree structure, and the basic method of grouping into categories and selecting a quantization value for each category is performed on a per node (i.e., per context) basis.

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First Claim