Alessandro Piva

Bio: Alessandro Piva is an academic researcher from University of Florence. The author has contributed to research in topics: Digital watermarking & Watermark. The author has an hindex of 42, co-authored 195 publications receiving 8380 citations. Previous affiliations of Alessandro Piva include Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research & UniFi.

Improved wavelet-based watermarking through pixel-wise masking

Abstract: A watermarking algorithm operating in the wavelet domain is presented. Performance improvement with respect to existing algorithms is obtained by means of a new approach to mask the watermark according to the characteristics of the human visual system (HVS). In contrast to conventional methods operating in the wavelet domain, masking is accomplished pixel by pixel by taking into account the texture and the luminance content of all the image subbands. The watermark consists of a pseudorandom sequence which is adaptively added to the largest detail bands. As usual, the watermark is detected by computing the correlation between the watermarked coefficients and the watermarking code, and the detection threshold is chosen in such a way that the knowledge of the watermark energy used in the embedding phase is not needed, thus permitting one to adapt it to the image at hand. Experimental results and comparisons with other techniques operating in the wavelet domain prove the effectiveness of the new algorithm.

DCT-based watermark recovering without resorting to the uncorrupted original image

Abstract: Digital watermarking has been proposed as a viable solution to the need of copyright protection and authentication of multimedia data in a networked environment, since it makes it possible to identify the author, owner, distributor or authorized consumer of a document In this paper a new watermarking technique to add a code to digital images is presented; the method operates in the frequency domain embedding a pseudo-random sequence of real numbers in a selected set of DCT coefficients Watermark casting is performed by exploiting the masking characteristics of the human visual system, to ensure watermark invisibility The embedded sequence is extracted without resorting to the original image, so that the proposed technique represents a major improvement to methods relying on the comparison between the watermarked and original images Experimental results demonstrate that the watermark is robust to most of the signal processing techniques and geometric distortions

Image Forgery Localization via Block-Grained Analysis of JPEG Artifacts

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a forensic algorithm to discriminate between original and forged regions in JPEG images, under the hypothesis that the tampered image presents a double JPEG compression, either aligned (A-DJPG) or nonaligned (NA-DJPG). Unlike previous approaches, the proposed algorithm does not need to manually select a suspect region in order to test the presence or the absence of double compression artifacts. Based on an improved and unified statistical model characterizing the artifacts that appear in the presence of both A-DJPG or NA-DJPG, the proposed algorithm automatically computes a likelihood map indicating the probability for each 8 × 8 discrete cosine transform block of being doubly compressed. The validity of the proposed approach has been assessed by evaluating the performance of a detector based on thresholding the likelihood map, considering different forensic scenarios. The effectiveness of the proposed method is also confirmed by tests carried on realistic tampered images. An interesting property of the proposed Bayesian approach is that it can be easily extended to work with traces left by other kinds of processing.

An Overview on Image Forensics

Abstract: The aim of this survey is to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the area of image forensics. These techniques have been designed to identify the source of a digital image or to determine whether the content is authentic or modified, without the knowledge of any prior information about the image under analysis (and thus are defined as passive). All these tools work by detecting the presence, the absence, or the incongruence of some traces intrinsically tied to the digital image by the acquisition device and by any other operation after its creation. The paper has been organized by classifying the tools according to the position in the history of the digital image in which the relative footprint is left: acquisition-based methods, coding-based methods, and editing-based schemes.

I and i

Abstract: There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality. Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

Computer vision : a modern approach = 计算机视觉 : 一种现代的方法

Abstract: From the Publisher: The accessible presentation of this book gives both a general view of the entire computer vision enterprise and also offers sufficient detail to be able to build useful applications. Users learn techniques that have proven to be useful by first-hand experience and a wide range of mathematical methods. A CD-ROM with every copy of the text contains source code for programming practice, color images, and illustrative movies. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this book includes essential topics that either reflect practical significance or are of theoretical importance. Topics are discussed in substantial and increasing depth. Application surveys describe numerous important application areas such as image based rendering and digital libraries. Many important algorithms broken down and illustrated in pseudo code. Appropriate for use by engineers as a comprehensive reference to the computer vision enterprise.

Image retrieval: Ideas, influences, and trends of the new age

Abstract: We have witnessed great interest and a wealth of promise in content-based image retrieval as an emerging technology. While the last decade laid foundation to such promise, it also paved the way for a large number of new techniques and systems, got many new people involved, and triggered stronger association of weakly related fields. In this article, we survey almost 300 key theoretical and empirical contributions in the current decade related to image retrieval and automatic image annotation, and in the process discuss the spawning of related subfields. We also discuss significant challenges involved in the adaptation of existing image retrieval techniques to build systems that can be useful in the real world. In retrospect of what has been achieved so far, we also conjecture what the future may hold for image retrieval research.

Digital Watermarking

Abstract: Digital watermarking is a key ingredient to copyright protection. It provides a solution to illegal copying of digital material and has many other useful applications such as broadcast monitoring and the recording of electronic transactions. Now, for the first time, there is a book that focuses exclusively on this exciting technology. Digital Watermarking covers the crucial research findings in the field: it explains the principles underlying digital watermarking technologies, describes the requirements that have given rise to them, and discusses the diverse ends to which these technologies are being applied. As a result, additional groundwork is laid for future developments in this field, helping the reader understand and anticipate new approaches and applications.