A virtual image cryptosystem based upon vector quantization

Statistical behavior analysis and precision optimization for the laser stripe center detector based on Steger's algorithm

Triangulation laser range scanning, which has been wildly used in various applications, can reconstruct the 3D geometric of the object with high precision by processing the image of laser stripe. The unbiased line extractor proposed by Steger is one of the most commonly used algorithms in laser stripe center extraction for its precision and robustness. Therefore, it is of great significance to assess the statistical performance of the Steger method when it is applied on laser stripe with Gaussian intensity profile. In this paper, a statistical behavior analysis for the laser stripe center extractor based on Steger method has been carried out. Relationships between center extraction precision, image quality and stripe characteristics have been examined analytically. Optimal scale of Gaussian smoothing kernel can be determined for each laser stripe image to achieve the highest precision according to the derived formula. Flexible three-step noise estimation procedure has been proposed to evaluate the center extraction precision of a typical triangulation laser scanning system by simply referring to the acquired images. The validity of our analysis has been verified by experiments on both artificial and natural images.

Computer-generated holograms using multiview images captured by a small number of sparsely arranged cameras

Computer-generated holograms (CGHs) using multiview images (MVIs) are holograms generated with multiple ordinary cameras. This process typically requires a huge number of cameras arranged at high density. In this paper, we propose a method to improve CGH using MVIs that obtains the MVIs by using voxel models rather than cameras. In the proposed method the voxel model is generated using the shape-from-silhouette (SFS) technique. We perform SFS using a small number of cameras arranged sparsely to create voxel models of objects and then generate the required number of images from these models by volume rendering. This enables us to generate CGHs using MVIs with just a small number of sparsely arranged cameras. Moreover, the proposed method arrange CGHs using MVIs at arbitrary positions.

A New Chaos-Based Image-Encryption and Compression Algorithm

We propose a new and efficient method to develop secure image-encryption techniques. The new algorithm combines two techniques: encryption and compression. In this technique, a wavelet transform was used to decompose the image and decorrelate its pixels into approximation and detail components. The more important component (the approximation component) is encrypted using a chaos-based encryption algorithm. This algorithm produces a cipher of the test image that has good diffusion and confusion properties. The remaining components (the detail components) are compressed using a wavelet transform. This proposed algorithm was verified to provide a high security level. A complete specification for the new algorithm is provided. Several test images are used to demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm. The results of several experiments show that the proposed algorithm for image cryptosystems provides an efficient and secure approach to real-time image encryption and transmission.

SECURE IMAGE HIDING SCHEME BASED UPON VECTOR QUANTIZATION

In this paper, a novel gray-level image-hiding scheme is proposed. The goal of this scheme is to hide multiple important gray-level images into another meaningful gray-level image. The secret images to be protected are first compressed using the vector quantization scheme. Then, the DES cryptosystem is conducted on the VQ indices and related parameters to generate the encrypted message. Finally, the encrypted message is embedded into the rightmost two bits of each pixel in the cover image.

According to the experimental results, average image qualities of 44.320 dB and 30.885 dB are achieved for the embedded images and the retrieved secret images, respectively. In other words, multiple secret images can be effectively hidden into one host image of the same size. In addition, the proposed scheme strengthens the protection of the secret images by conducting the DES cryptosystem on the related parameters and the VQ indices of the compressed secret images. Therefore, the proposed scheme provides a secure approach to embed multiple important images into another meaningful image of the same size.

Fast planar-oriented ripple search algorithm for hyperspace VQ codebook

This paper presents a fast codebook search method for improving the quantization complexity of full-search vector quantization (VQ). The proposed method is built on the planar Voronoi diagram to label a ripple search domain. Then, the appropriate codeword can easily be found just by searching the local region instead of global exploration. In order to take a step further and obtain the close result full-search VQ would, we equip the proposed method with a duplication mechanism that helps to bring down the possible quantizing distortion to its lowest level. According to the experimental results, the proposed method is indeed capable of providing better outcome at a faster quantization speed than the existing partial-search methods. Moreover, the proposed method only requires a little extra storage for duplication.

Design of cascaded phase keys for a hierarchical security system

An image cryptosystem based on multiple phase-only masks is proposed. The proposed cryptosystem is a hierarchical security system that can use multiple phase keys to retrieve different amounts of data. In addition to the sequential order of the phase keys, the distance parameters among the phase keys are introduced to increase the system security. Even when an illegal user steals all the phase keys, the system cannot be broken without the correct sequential order and the distance parameters. However, the proposed system can verify the identities of the persons by the cascaded structure for the phase keys to generate different verification images. Simulation results are further demonstrated to verify the proposed method.