Patent US 5,655,032

The present invention discloses a method and apparatus for hierarchical coding of image data using a typical prediction TP if a 2.times.2 array of pixels can be reduced to coded pixel. The present invention uses a TP flag, TP discrimination and a two line delay. Accordingly, the hierarchical coding can be realized by a small amount of hardware. According to deterministic prediction DP, if there is a decision that the image data may be reduced then the value of the pixel can be predicted from a reduced pixel (low resolution data) and surrounding pixels (high resolution data) which are extracted in advance. If the pixel to be coded is one that can be uniquely determined this pixel is excluded form coding.