A successive approximation vector quantizer for wavelet transform image coding

2-Step scalar deadzone quantization for bitplane image coding

Modern lossy image coding systems generate a quality progressive codestream that, truncated at increasing rates, produces an image with decreasing distortion. Quality progressivity is commonly provided by an embedded quantizer that employs uniform scalar deadzone quantization (USDQ) together with a bitplane coding strategy. This paper introduces a 2-step scalar deadzone quantization (2SDQ) scheme that achieves same coding performance as that of USDQ while reducing the coding passes and the emitted symbols of the bitplane coding engine. This serves to reduce the computational costs of the codec and/or to code high dynamic range images. The main insights behind 2SDQ are the use of two quantization step sizes that approximate wavelet coefficients with more or less precision depending on their density, and a rate-distortion optimization technique that adjusts the distortion decreases produced when coding 2SDQ indexes. The integration of 2SDQ in current codecs is straightforward. The applicability and efficiency of 2SDQ are demonstrated within the framework of JPEG2000.

Successive refinement lattice vector quantization

Lattice Vector quantization (LVQ) solves the complexity problem of LBG based vector quantizers, yielding very general codebooks. However, a single stage LVQ, when applied to high resolution quantization of a vector, may result in very large and unwieldy indices, making it unsuitable for applications requiring successive refinement. The goal of this work is to develop a unified framework for progressive uniform quantization of vectors without having to sacrifice the mean- squared-error advantage of lattice quantization. A successive refinement uniform vector quantization methodology is developed, where the codebooks in successive stages are all lattice codebooks, each in the shape of the Voronoi regions of the lattice at the previous stage. Such Voronoi shaped geometric lattice codebooks are named Voronoi lattice VQs (VLVQ). Measures of efficiency of successive refinement are developed based on the entropy of the indices transmitted by the VLVQs. Additionally, a constructive method for asymptotically optimal uniform quantization is developed using tree-structured subset VLVQs in conjunction with entropy coding. The methodology developed here essentially yields the optimal vector counterpart of scalar "bitplane-wise" refinement. Unfortunately it is not as trivial to implement as in the scalar case. Furthermore, the benefits of asymptotic optimality in tree-structured subset VLVQs remain elusive in practical nonasymptotic situations. Nevertheless, because scalar bitplane- wise refinement is extensively used in modern wavelet image coders, we have applied the VLVQ techniques to successively refine vectors of wavelet coefficients in the vector set-partitioning (VSPIHT) framework. The results are compared against SPIHT and the previous successive approximation wavelet vector quantization (SA-W-VQ) results of Sampson, da Silva and Ghanbari.

The enhanced LBG algorithm

Clustering applications cover several fields such as audio and video data compression, pattern recognition, computer vision, medical image recognition, etc. In this paper, we present a new clustering algorithm called Enhanced LBG (ELBG). It belongs to the hard and K-means vector quantization groups and derives directly from the simpler LBG. The basic idea we have developed is the concept of utility of a codeword, a powerful instrument to overcome one of the main drawbacks of clustering algorithms: generally, the results achieved are not good in the case of a bad choice of the initial codebook. We will present our experimental results showing the ELBG is able to find better codebooks than previous clustering techniques and the computational complexity is virtually the same as the simpler LBG.

Hadamard-based image decomposition and compression

In this paper, we develop a general algorithm for decomposition and compression of grayscale images. The decomposition can be expressed as a functional relation between the original image and the Hadamard waveforms. The dynamic adaptive clustering procedure incorporates potential functions as a similarity measure for clustering as well as a reclustering phase. The latter is a multi-iteration, convergent procedure which divides the inputs into nonoverlapping clusters. These two techniques allow us to efficiently store and transmit a class of half-tone medical images such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the human brain. Due to the redundant image structure of MRI, obtained after the decomposition and clustering, almost half of the image can be omitted all together. Naturally, the compression rates for this specific type of grayscale image are increased greatly. A run-length coding is performed in order to compress further the retained information from the first two steps. Although all the techniques applied are simple, they represent an efficient way to compress grayscale images. The algorithm exhibits a performance which is competitive and often outperforming some of the methods reported in the literature.