1. Field
One or more embodiments of the present invention relates to a method, medium, and system compressing images, and more particularly, to method, medium, and system effectively compressing and/or restoring binary images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Existing image compression techniques, such as H.264, JPEG-LS, and JPEG standards, utilize a basic principle of removing similarities between pixel values constructing an image. This basic principle can be applied to a variety of images, but cannot be applied to some portions of natural images or synthetic images, such as test patterns, where little similarity exists between pixels. In particular, a representative image in which such minimal similarity exists between pixel values is a binary image, where each pixel has only two values.
FIG. 1 illustrates two samples of the variety in binary images.
Referring to FIG. 1, the image 11 of FIG. 1 has two available values, while the image 12 of FIG. 1 further shows binary areas having two respective groups of binary pixel values, each respective group having slightly different values. If existing image compression methods are applied to each of the binary areas, compression efficiency and the resultant picture-quality of restored images deteriorates significantly since such similarities between pixel values cannot be utilized.