METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR PRUNING DECISION OPTIMIZATION IN EXAMPLE-BASED DATA PRUNING COMPRESSION

An apparatus includes a patch library creator for creating a first patch library from an original version of the picture and a second patch library from a reconstructed version of the picture. Each of the libraries includes a plurality of high resolution replacement patches for replacing one or more pruned blocks during a recovery of a pruned version of the picture. A pruner generates the pruned version from the first patch library, and decides whether to respectively replace original blocks with pruned blocks responsive to a comparison between a first rate-distortion estimate and a second rate-distortion estimate. The estimates are based on both a distortion component and a bitrate component. A metadata generator generates metadata from the second patch library. The metadata is for recovering the pruned version. An encoder encodes the pruned version and the metadata.