A low bandwidth video teleconferencing system and method is disclosed. The video teleconferencing system employs novel data compression techniques by which continuous transmission of imagery at a rate of 9600 bits/second is possible. A sketch coder converts the grey scale image to be transmitted to a sketch or line drawing, which comprises an outline of the principal boundaries plus shading to represent depth. The bandwidth required for the data representing the sketch is then compressed by two-dimensional run length coding techniques which exploit interframe and interline redundancy as well as intraline redundancy to generate a binary transmission code. Other features are also provided.