Custom Made Pyramids

Abstract

Pyramids are data structures used to store and process images in multiple resolutions. The bottom level of the pyramid usually stores the original image, while higher levels of the pyramid represent the image in reduced resolutions. The reduction of image size between levels is usually by a factor of two, and identical factors are used to reduce each level to the higher level.

This paper describes a scheme that enables the pyramid to be adapted to different applications. The pyramid can be reduced arbitrarily between levels from any given rectangular size to any desired rectangular size. Also, the reduction factor can be made adaptive to region properties, enabling smooth regions to be reduced more than “busy” regions.