Methods and apparatuses for encoding/decoding high resolution images

Abstract

The invention relates to methods and apparatuses for encoding/decoding high resolution images, which involve setting the size of the prediction unit to be encoded to an expanded macro-block size in accordance with the temporal frequency characteristics or spatial frequency characteristics among pictures to be encoded, and performing motion prediction motion compensation, and transformation on the basis of a set prediction unit size. In addition, the methods and the apparatuses of the present invention involve dividing a macro-block having a pixel size of 32*32 or 64*64 into at least one partition on the basis of an edge, and performing encoding processes for each partition. Accordingly, encoding efficiency can be improved for high definition (HD) or higher resolution high-resolution images.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An apparatus for decoding an image comprising:
 an inverse-transforming unit configured to restore a residue by entropy-decoding a received bit stream and by performing inverse quantization and inverse transform on the residue;   an intra predicting unit configured to generate a prediction unit by performing intra-prediction encoding that selectively uses one of a plurality of prediction modes on a prediction unit; and   an adder configured to restore the image by adding the residue to the prediction, wherein the prediction unit corresponds to a leaf coding unit when a coding unit is split and reaches a maximum permissible depth, and the coding unit has a recursive tree structure, and wherein a partition splitting is achieved by an asymmetric partitioning when the prediction unit is split.   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein a minimum size of the coding unit is included in a sequence parameter set. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the asymmetric partitioning is conducted along a horizontal direction to split the prediction unit
 into a first partition having a size of 64×16 and a second partition having a size of 64×48, or   into a first partition having a size of 64×48 and a second partition having a size of 64×16.   
     
     
         4 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the asymmetric partitioning is performed along a vertical direction to split the prediction unit
 into a first partition having a size of 16×64 and a second partition having 48×64, or   into a first partition having a size of 48×64 and a second partition having a size of 16×64.   
     
     
         5 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , when a planar intra prediction mode is activated, a predicted pixel value of an internal pixel of a current prediction unit is obtained by performing bilinear interpolation using (i) vertically and horizontally directional corresponding internal boundary prediction pixel values in the current prediction unit, and (ii) vertically and horizontally directional corresponding pixel values in previously decoded left side block and upper end block of the current prediction unit. 
     
     
         6 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the prediction unit includes a block of which size is more than 16×16 pixels and a size of the prediction unit is restricted to no more than 64×64 pixels. 
     
     
         7 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the vertically and horizontally directional corresponding pixel values in the previously decoded left side block and upper end block of the current prediction unit include:
 a pixel value of a third pixel which is located on a lowermost boundary of the upper end block of the current prediction unit and on the same vertical column as the internal pixel, and   a pixel value of a fourth pixel which is located on a rightmost boundary of the left side block of the current prediction unit and on the same horizontal row as the internal pixel.