METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SUPPRESSING BLOCKING ARTIFACTS IN BLOCK-TRANSFORM CODED IMAGES

An improved method for removing blocking artifacts in regions of slowly varying intensity in an electronic image decoded from a transform coded representation of an image, includes the steps of: receiving signals indicative of DC and AC coefficient values of transformed blocks of image data; modifying the DC value in each of the blocks based on the level of activity within the block and the DC values in neighboring blocks; performing AC prediction in each block using the modified DC values; replacing the AC values in each block with the AC predicted values based on the level of activity within the block and the modified DC values in neighboring blocks; and reconstructing the image using the modified DC and AC coefficient values.