WO2006080031A1

WO2006080031A1 - New method of digital data representation using colors

Info

Publication number: WO2006080031A1
Application number: PCT/IN2006/000023
Authority: WO
Inventors: Kumar Raju G Praveen
Original assignee: Kumar Raju G Praveen
Priority date: 2005-01-28
Filing date: 2006-01-24
Publication date: 2006-08-03
Also published as: WO2006080031A8

Abstract

The present invention provides a new method of data representation using colors. The present invention provides a new method for data representation wherein digital data or digital information strings of 0's and 1's are divided into groups of sequential bits of predefined length and represented by predefined color assigned that is printed by a standard printer on a suitable standard printable medium. Further a standard scanner is used to record the color of the pixels printed on the printable medium. At the data sink the digital data or digital information string is retrieved by decoding the pre-defined color with the assigned sequential bits as originally assigned.

Description

TITLE OF INVENTION

NEW METHOD OF DIGITAL DATA REPRESENTATION USING COLORS

The present invention claims priority from the Indian application number

85/MUM/2005 dated 28/01/2005. Technical field

The present invention relates to a new method of data representation using colors. More particularly the present invention relates to a new method for data representation wherein digital data or digital information strings of O's and 1's are divided into groups of sequential bits of predefined length and represented by predefined color assigned that is printed on a suitable printable medium.

Background and Prior art

The digital data for computer related applications have been represented on paper tapes, magnetic storage devices, optical storage devices, semiconductor storage devices, and Magneto-optical disc storage devices in the form of binary data. The development has been primarily focussed on achieving progressively higher densities for higher volumes, flexibility, portability, etc. The format used in all these applications is the binary format. Deficiencies or drawbacks in the existing art The formats in use cover holes (paper tapes), tracks for magnetic tapes,

ASCII for standard keyboard, audio/video; etc. aimed at packaging digital strings for higher volume of storage. The end format remains in the binary form of O's and 1 's. The density of storage progressed in various forms from paper tapes, magnetic, optical etc. but mainly limited by boundaries of physics. The present invention provides a new method of digital data representation using colors which has scope of applications in smart card, security tags, authentication of currency notes, storage devices, etc.

The technological advancement in handling of color medium in future will enhance the range of advantages of this invention in terms of volume, durability, flexibility, portability, economy etc. and also towards primary storage. To overcome the bottlenecks in representing data and security for a digital data a new method of representing data is introduced to be adopted for various storage mediums. Object of the invention The object of the present invention is to provide a new method of digital data representation using colors in which the digital data or digital information strings of O's and 1 's are divided into groups of sequential bits of predefined length and represented by a predefined color assigned that is printed on a suitable printable medium. The foregoing object of the invention is accomplished and the problems and shortcomings associated with prior art techniques and approaches are overcome by the present invention described in the present embodiment. Statement of invention

A new method of digital data representation using colors comprising the steps of: encoding digital data bits using corresponding to a sequence of bits ; representing the digital data bits using pre-defined color; printing the colored digital data bits in the form of a pixel onto a printable medium; scanning color of the pixel with a scanner; and decoding the scanned pixel to retrieve data from the digital data bits corresponding to original data bits. Detailed description

Detailed descriptions of the preferred embodiments are provided herein; however, it is to be understood that the present invention may be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but rather as a basis for the claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to employ the present invention in virtually any appropriately detailed system, structure or matter. In the computer related applications the data is represented and processed in digital form. The digital data consists of O's and 1's. In existing storage devices the digital data is stored on hardware by representing O's and 1 's pits and without pits and polarity in case of CDs and magnetic medium respectively. According to the present invention, the digital data is encoded by converting it into pre-defined strings and assigning a pre-defined standard color corresponding to a sequence of bits and is stored on a printable media using a printer. The color is represented with its code value. For example in an 8-bit color the black value is represented by decimal value 0 and pure white is represented by decimal value 256. The encoded strings are assigned to the values of the color. The standard printer prints the pre-defined encoded strings, which are assigned a pre-defined standard color, on the standard printable medium in the form of a color pixel.

Further, in the encoding stage the error detecting and correcting algorithms for example Reed-Solomon codes maybe used to increase the reliability of the system for storing data.

According to the present invention the standard printable media include paper, photo-paper, plastic, etc.

According to the present invention, a standard scanner is used to record the color of the pixel printed on to the printable medium. In the scanner the image or pixels are retrieved and the process is reversed. At the data sink where the data is retrieved the color value is taken and decoded to predefined string, which is assigned to the color corresponding to original data bits.

According to the present invention, the printer and the scanner have to be compatible. For example if the printer resolution is 300 dots per square inch, the scanner resolution should be equal or more than 300 dots per square inch. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the digital data is encoded by converting it into pre-defined encoded strings and assigning a pre- defined standard color in a color range and is stored on a printable media using 90 a printer. For example in an 8-bit gray level green color, the range of green shades is represented by decimal values ranging from green 0 to green 256. The predefined range of green gray level is assigned to the same encoded string.

In another embodiment of the present invention the digital data is

95 encoded by converting it into predefined encoded strings and assigning a predefined standard color combination and is stored on a printable media using a printer. The colors in the color combinations are represented with its code value. For example in an 8-bit color the black value is represented by decimal value 0 and pure white is represented by decimal value 256. The encoded

100 strings are assigned to the values of the color of the color combinations.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention the digital data is encoded by converting it into predefined encoded strings and assigning a predefined standard color in a color range and their combination and is stored on a printable media using a printer. The colors in the color range combinations 105 are represented with its code value. The encoded strings are assigned to the values of the color in the color range and their combinations.

According to the present invention a unique color or a set of colors is used as the background with no string assigned to it as a reference to detect the memory space on the printable media. For example, black is used as a 110 background covering the space of the digital data represented in form of color pixels to be printed. The color black will not be used to represent the predefined string of the data. It provides a reference of the memory space used. Brief description of drawings

The digital data at source (1) is encoded and represented using pre- 115 defined color (2); the encoded digital data strings are printed by a printer (3) in the form of color pixels on a standard printable medium (4); the color of the pixels printed on the printable medium is scanned by a scanner (5); the scanned pixel is decoded (6) and displayed at the data sink (7).

Advantages of the present invention

120 ^■ The present invention is performed on digital data bits hence is easily compatible with computer related applications.

^■ As the predefined encoded digital strings are represented by pixels the storage space required reduces.

^■ As each color pixel represents a predefined length accessing the pixels 125 gives the entire string length thus reducing the access time.

Although the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments, this description is not meant to be constructed in a limiting sense. Various modifications of the disclosed embodiments, as well as alternate embodiments of the invention, will become apparent to persons skilled 130 in the art upon reference to the description of the invention. It is therefore contemplated that such modifications will be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention as defined.

The invention will now be illustrated with the help of the following non- limiting examples. 135 Embodiment 1

Digital data of O's and 1 's where the digital data string is divided as predefined as shown in the table. In this example the binary string is divided into 4 bits each, as there are 16 colors available. The encoded strings will have combinations as shown in table 1 140 Table 1 :

1) 0000 color 1

2) 0001 color 2

3) 0010 color 3

4) 0011 color 4 145 5 5)) 0 0110000 color 5 6) 0101 color 6

7) 0110 color 7

8) 0111 color 8

9) 1000 color 9

150 1100)) 11000011 color 10

11) 1010 color 1 1

12) 1011 color 12

13) 1100 color 13

14) 1101 color 14

155 1155)) 11111100 color 15

16) 1111 color 16

Now let's consider digital data in form of O's and 1's 000110101000101010101010100000011111111111111101 Dividing above string into 4 bits 160 0001 1010 1000 1010 1010 1010 1000 0001 1 1 1 1 11 1 1 1 1 11 1 101

Now each sequence is encoded by dividing the string into sub strings of size four and assigned a color pixel as shown in the table predefined. The above string in the example consists of 48 digital bits of Os and 1s. Four bits are divided and color pixel is assigned as predefined as per table. Now the entire

165 digital data in the example is represented with 12 color pixels.

Using colors according to the above table 1 each for the above sixteen sequential strings in digital data are divided and represented on standard printable medium.

Therefore forty-eight bits are being represented by twelve colors pixels 170 on the standard printable medium.

When the optical scanner scans the 12 color pixels represented on the standard printable medium in the above example, each color pixel is represented by the digital sequence assigned before.

175 Embodiment 2 A color range is a set of predefined color values. For example dividing an 8 bit gray level green color (from dark to light). Taking green 0 to green 128 as one string value and taking green 129 to green 256 as one value, i.e. assigning a common encoded string to the first range and other encoded string 180 to the colors falling in second range. While retrieving the data, the optical scanner scans the pixels and the strings of encoded digital data are retrieved when the scanned pixel color falls into the predefined range.

For example in the digital data of O's and 1 's the strings are divided into certain strings.

185 In this example the binary string is divided into 4 bits each. The strings will have combinations as shown in table 2 Table 2

1) 0000 color range 1

2) 0001 color range 2

190 3 3)) 0 0001100 color range 3

4) 0011 color range 4

5) 0100 color range 5

6) 0101 color range 6

7) 0110 color range 7

195 8 8)) 0 0111111 color range 8

9) 1000 color range 9

10) 1001 color range 10

11) 1010 color range 1 1

12) 1011 color range 12

200 1 133)) 1 1110000 color range 13

14) 1101 color range 14

15) 1110 color range 15

16) 1111 color range 16 In the following example the digital data is in the form of O's and 1's 205 000110101000101010101010100000011111111111111101

The above string is divided into 4 bits. 0001 1010 1000 1010 1010 1010 1000 0001 1111 1111 1111 1101

The above 4*12=48 bits are represented using only 12 color pixels with the color corresponding in the predefine color range.

210 Using colors according to the above table 1 each for the above sixteen sequential strings in digital data are divided and represented on hardware by sixteen different colors. Therefore twelve colors pixels on hardware are representing 48 bits.

When the optical scanner scans the 12 color pixels represented on

215 the hardware medium in the above example each color pixel is represented by the digital sequence assigned before the color that is represented on the media after being assigned using printer. The scanner takes that color value and assigns the particular string if the color is present in the range. This reduces the error caused due to inefficiency of the printer to represent the assigned value.

220 For example if a dark red color pixel has to be printed by the printer it is able to represent relatively brighter pixel. When range is taken instead of a particular color the error caused due to inefficiency of the printer and scanner will be reduced to great extent.

Less color ranges can be taken which the printer supports. For example 225 eight colors in the color range can be used in above example instead of 16 colors in the color ranges. But the compression is less as only three bits can be represented by each color in a color range. Embodiment 3

The groups of predefined encoded sequential strings are represented by 230 color combinations.

In this example the binary string is divided into 4 bits with two color combinations. Each color is two in this case. The strings will have combinations as shown in table 3 Table 3

235 1) 00 00 color 1 color 1

2) 00 01 color 1 color 2

3) 00 10 color 1 color 3

4) 00 11 color 1 color 4

5) 01 00 color 2 color 1 240 6) 01 01 color 2 color 2

7) 01 10 color 2 color 3

8) 01 11 color 2 color 4

9) 10 00 color 3 color 1

10) 10 01 color 3 color 2 245 11) 10 10 color 3 color 3

12) 10 11 color 3 color 4

13) 11 00 color 4 color 1

14) 11 01 color 4 color 2

15) 11 10 color 4 color 3 250 16) 11 11 color 4 color 4

Now let's consider digital data in form of O's and 1's

000110101000101010101010100000011111111111111101

Dividing above string into two two bits.

00 01 10 10 10 00 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 00 00 01 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 01 255 The above 48 bits sequences in the example are represented by 24 color pixels.

Using colors according to the above table 1 each for the above sixteen sequential strings in digital data are divided and represented on hardware by combination of two pixels with four different colors. Therefore 48 bits are being 260 represented by twenty-four pixels on standard printable media. When the optical scanner scans the 24 color pixels represented on the hardware medium in the above example, each color pixel combination is represented by the digital sequence assigned before. Embodiment 4

265 Each group of sequential bits is represented by a predefined color ranges with and the combinations are printed on the standard printable medium.

While scanning the particular string value is represented by combination of color pixels and their ranges, which are printed on the standard printable 270 medium.

For example in the digital data of O's and 1 's, the strings are divided into certain strings.

In this example the binary string is divided into 4 bits with two color combinations. Each color is two in this case. 275 The strings will have combinations as shown in table 3

Table 3

D 00 00 color range 1 color range 1

2) 00 01 color range 1 color range 2

3) 00 10 color range 1 color range 3 280 4 4)) 0 0001 111 color range 1 color range 4

5) 01 00 color range 2 color range 1

6) 01 01 color range 2 color range 2

7) 01 10 color range 2 color range 3

8) 01 11 color range 2 color range 4 285 9 9)) 1 1000 000 color range 3 color range 1

10) 10 01 color range 3 color range 2

11) 10 10 color range 3 color range 3

12) 10 11 color range 3 color range 4

13) 11 00 color range 4 color range 1 290 14) 11 01 color range 4 color range 2

15) 11 10 color range 4 color range 3

16) 11 11 color range 4 color range 4

Now let's consider digital data in form of O's and 1's 000110101000101010101010100000011111111111111101

295 Dividing above string into two two bits

00 01 10 10 10 00 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 00 00 01 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 01 The above 2^*24=48 bits are represented using only 4 colors ranges with two color range combinations in form of pixels. The 48 bits are represented with only 24 pixels.

300 Using colors according to the above table 1 each for the above sixteen sequential strings in digital data are divided and represented on hardware by combination of two pixels with four different colors. Therefore forty eight bits are represented by twenty four pixels hardware.

When the optical scanner scans the 24 color pixels represented on the

305 hardware medium in the above example, each color range pixel combination is represented by the digital sequence assigned before.

The embodiments of the invention as described above and the methods disclosed herein will suggest further modification and alterations to those skilled in the art. Such further modifications and alterations may be

310 made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention; which is defined by the scope of the following claims.

Claims

315

1) A new method of digital data representation using colors comprising the steps of: encoding digital data bits corresponding to a sequence of bits ; representing said digital data bits using pre-defined color; 320 printing said colored digital data bits in the form of a pixel onto a printable medium; scanning color of said pixel with a scanner; and decoding said scanned pixel to retrieve data from said digital data bits corresponding to original data bits. 325 2) A new method of digital data representation using colors as claimed in claim

1 wherein; said printable medium includes photo paper, paper, plastic, cloth, paper tape etc.

3) A new method of digital data representation using colors as claimed in claim 1 ; where in representation can be in the form of combination of colors,

330 ranges in same colors or color range along with combination of colors.

4) A new method of digital data representation using colors as claimed in claims 1 to 3 substantially as herein described with reference to the foregoing description and embodiments.

335