Method and apparatus for providing a session status indicator

1. A method of presenting display status information, comprising:

receiving, at a client computer, from a host computer remotely located with respect to the client computer, refinement data of an unchanged portion of a plurality of spatial portions of a source image at the host computer;

updating display image data, displayed by the client computer, by accumulating the refinement data with a corresponding spatial portion of the display image data; and

updating a presentation that indicates a reproduction quality of the display image data with respect to the source image, wherein the presentation is updated, in response to updating the display image data, to indicate a user's perceptual quality of the updated display image data, wherein the presentation is determined based on a system latency of the host computer and the client computer, wherein the reproduction quality comprises an assembly of reproduction quality information associated with each spatial portion of the plurality of spatial portions, wherein the reproduction quality information comprises static picture image reproduction accuracy information and temporal information comprising a period since the source image last changed, and wherein a format of the presentation is based on a difference between a qualitative perceptual quality score and plurality of quality thresholds.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the updated display image data is a lossless reproduction of the source image, and the presentation is changed from an indication of a lossy reproduction to an indication of a lossless reproduction of the source image, wherein the indication of the lossless reproduction occurs when a displayed quality status indicator disappears.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the refinement data is a step in a sequence of progressively received image data accumulating to a lossless reproduction of the source image.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the unchanged portion is the only update received for an associated frame of the source image.

5. The method claim of 1 further comprising partitioning the updated display image data into a plurality of blocks and maintaining quality information, the quality information comprising reproduction accuracy with respect to the source image, for each block of the plurality of blocks, wherein (i) the source image comprises a plurality of regions with independent update rates, (ii) the reproduction quality is determined from the reproduction accuracy of each block of the plurality of blocks, (iii) the refinement data comprises image refinement data for at least one of the plurality of blocks, and (iv) the presentation indicates a quality status as an aggregation of the quality information for each block of the plurality of blocks.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the presentation comprises at least one of a cursor attribute, a graph, a dial, an overlay, an LED, an audio alarm or an icon.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the reproduction quality is based on characteristics of a network connection between the client computer and the host computer comprising the source image.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the client computer determines a time base with respect to the source image, wherein the reproduction quality is determined using the time base.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the time base is at least partly determined by measuring a response time associated with a communication to the host computer comprising the source image.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the response time is based on a time from an input, from a peripheral device event of the client computer, to receiving an update of the source image, the update of the source image rendered in response to the input from the peripheral device.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving image sequence information of the source image and, responsive to a sequence status associated with image sequence information, displaying an indication of the sequence status.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the sequence status comprises at least one of a progressive image error or a dropped frame error.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

receiving initial data of a changed portion of the plurality of spatial portions, the changed portion from a same frame of the source image as the unchanged portion; and

updating the display image data by replacing a spatial portion of the display image data, aligned with the changed portion, with the initial data, wherein updating the presentation is further based on the initial data.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein receiving the refinement data and the initial data comprises receiving encoded image data and decoding the encoded image data to produce the refinement data and the initial data.

15. An apparatus for presenting display status information, comprising:

a processor;

a client resource for receiving, from a host computer remotely located with respect to the client resource, refinement data of an unchanged portion of a plurality of spatial portions of a source image at the host computer; updating display image data, for display by the client resource, by accumulating the refinement data with a corresponding spatial portion of the display image data; and updating a presentation that indicates a reproduction quality of the display image data with respect to the source image, wherein the presentation is updated, in response to updating the display image data, to indicate a user's perceptual quality of the updated display image data, wherein the presentation is determined based on a system latency of the host computer and the client resource, wherein the reproduction quality comprises an assembly of reproduction quality information associated with each spatial portion of the plurality of spatial portions, wherein the reproduction quality information comprises static picture image reproduction accuracy information and temporal information comprising a period since the source image last changed, and wherein a format of the presentation is based on a difference between a qualitative perceptual quality score and plurality of quality thresholds.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the display image data comprises temporal status information with respect to changes to regions of the source image and wherein the reproduction quality is based on the temporal status information.

17. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein (i) the display image data is spatially divided into a plurality of regions, (ii) each region of the plurality of regions comprises a progressive build state identifying incremental quality improvements of the display image data associated with an unchanged region of the source image, (iii) the unchanged portion comprises a region of the plurality of regions, (iv) updating the display image data comprises updating the progressive build state of the region, (v) the reproduction quality is based on the progressive build state of each region of the plurality of regions, and (vi) the presentation indicates a quality status as an aggregation of the progressive build state for each region of the plurality of regions.

18. A system for generating display status information comprising:

a host computer comprising an encoder for encoding refinement image data of an unchanged portion of a plurality of spatial portions of a source image; and

a client computer for (i) receiving the encoded refinement image data from the host computer, (ii) updating display image data, for display by the client computer, by accumulating the refinement image data with a corresponding spatial portion of the display image data, and (iii) updating a presentation that indicates a reproduction quality of the display image data with respect to the source image, wherein the presentation is updated, in response to updating the display image data, to indicate a user's perceptual quality of the updated display image data, wherein the presentation is determined based on a system latency of the host computer and the client computer, wherein the reproduction quality comprises an assembly of reproduction quality information associated with each spatial portion of the plurality of spatial portions, wherein the reproduction quality information comprising a picture image reproduction accuracy information and temporal information comprising a period since the source image last changed, and wherein a format of the presentation is based on a difference between a qualitative perceptual quality score and plurality of quality thresholds.