System and method providing improved data compression via wavelet coefficient encoding

1. A data compression system, comprising:

a scanning component which contiguously scans at least a portion of a transformed image, wherein the contiguous scan is performed substantially in a horizontal direction on a first section of the portion and in a vertical direction on a second section of the portion to enable improved data compression of the transformed image.

2. The data compression system of claim 1 , further comprising a wavelet transform subsystem for transforming an image into wavelet coefficients via low pass and high pass filters applied to the image.

3. The data compression system of claim 2 , further comprising a quantizer for reducing data associated with the wavelet coefficients.

4. The data compression system of claim 2 , further comprising a reordering and blocking subsystem to provide a matrix of wavelet coefficients that are organized into at least one of low-low (LL), low-high (LH), high-low (HL), and high-high (HH) sub-bands.

5. The data compression system of claim 4 , wherein the LH sub-bands are scanned in the vertical direction and the HL sub-bands are scanned in the horizontal direction.

6. The data compression system of claim 4 , wherein the LL and HH sub-bands are scanned in either the horizontal or the vertical direction.

7. The data compression system of claim 4 , wherein run length encoding is employed to encode the scanned coefficients.

8. The data compression system of claim 7 , wherein at least one of Golomb-Rice encoding and Arithmetic encoding is employed to encode the scanned coefficients.

9. A method for providing a data compression system, comprising:

contiguously scanning at least a portion of a transformed image in substantially a horizontal direction on a first section of the portion;

and contiguously scanning in a vertical direction on a second section of the portion of the transformed image to enable improved data compression of the transformed image.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

transforming an image into wavelet coefficients via low pass and high pass filters applied to the image.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

recording and blocking to provide a matrix of wavelet coefficients that are organized into at least one of low-low (LL), low-high (LH), high-low (HL), and high-high (HH) sub-bands.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the LH sub-bands are scanned in the vertical direction and the HL sub-bands are scanned in the horizontal direction.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the LL and HH sub-bands are scanned in either the horizontal or the vertical direction.

14. A data compression system, comprising:

means for contiguously scanning at least a portion of a transformed image in substantially a horizontal direction on a first section of the portion; and

means for contiguously scanning in a vertical direction on a second section of the portion of the transformed image to enable improved data compression of the transformed image.

15. The data compression sytem of claim 14 , further comprising:

means for transforming an image into wavelet coefficients via low pass and high pass filters applied to the image.

16. The data compression system of claim 15 , further comprising:

means for reordering and blocking to provide a matrix of wavelet coefficients that are organized into at least one of low-low (LL), low-high (LH), high-low (HL), and high-high (HH) sub-bands.

17. The data compression system of claim 16 , wherein the LH sub-bands are scanned in the vertical direction and the HL sub-bands are scanned in the horizontal direction.

18. The data compression system of claim 16 , wherein the LL and HH sub-bands are scanned in either the horizontal or the vertical direction.

19. An image compression system, comprising:

a wavelet transform subsystem for transforming an image into wavelet coefficients; and

a scanning component which contiguously scans at least a portion of the transformed image, wherein the contiguous scan is performed substantially in a horizontal direction on a first section of the portion and in a vertical direction on a second section of the portion to enable improved data compression of the transformed image.