Objective methods for assessing perceptual image quality traditionally attempted to quantify the visibility of errors (differences) between a distorted image and a reference image using a variety of known properties of the human visual system. Under the assumption that human visual perception is highly adapted for extracting structural information from a scene, we introduce an alternative complementary framework for quality assessment based on the degradation of structural information. As a specific example of this concept, we develop a structural similarity index and demonstrate its promise through a set of intuitive examples, as well as comparison to both subjective ratings and state-of-the-art objective methods on a database of images compressed with JPEG and JPEG2000. A MATLAB implementation of the proposed algorithm is available online at http://www.cns.nyu.edu//spl sim/lcv/ssim/.

/pdf/image-quality-assessment-from-error-visibility-to-structural-1rlwcqe34t.pdf

Image quality assessment: from error visibility to structural similarity

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 …

I and i

Introduction to a Transient World. Fourier Kingdom. Discrete Revolution. Time Meets Frequency. Frames. Wavelet Zoom. Wavelet Bases. Wavelet Packet and Local Cosine Bases. An Approximation Tour. Estimations are Approximations. Transform Coding. Appendix A: Mathematical Complements. Appendix B: Software Toolboxes.

http://ahvazdownload.persiangig.com/document/article/39.pdf

A wavelet tour of signal processing

Embedded zerotree wavelet (EZW) coding, introduced by Shapiro (see IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol.41, no.12, p.3445, 1993), is a very effective and computationally simple technique for image compression. We offer an alternative explanation of the principles of its operation, so that the reasons for its excellent performance can be better understood. These principles are partial ordering by magnitude with a set partitioning sorting algorithm, ordered bit plane transmission, and exploitation of self-similarity across different scales of an image wavelet transform. Moreover, we present a new and different implementation based on set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT), which provides even better performance than our previously reported extension of EZW that surpassed the performance of the original EZW. The image coding results, calculated from actual file sizes and images reconstructed by the decoding algorithm, are either comparable to or surpass previous results obtained through much more sophisticated and computationally complex methods. In addition, the new coding and decoding procedures are extremely fast, and they can be made even faster, with only small loss in performance, by omitting entropy coding of the bit stream by the arithmetic code.

http://dns2.asia.edu.tw/~ysho/YSHO-English/2000%20Engineering/PDF/IEE%20Tra%20Cir%20Sys%20Vid%20Tec6,%20243.pdf

A new, fast, and efficient image codec based on set partitioning in hierarchical trees

The embedded zerotree wavelet algorithm (EZW) is a simple, yet remarkably effective, image compression algorithm, having the property that the bits in the bit stream are generated in order of importance, yielding a fully embedded code The embedded code represents a sequence of binary decisions that distinguish an image from the "null" image Using an embedded coding algorithm, an encoder can terminate the encoding at any point thereby allowing a target rate or target distortion metric to be met exactly Also, given a bit stream, the decoder can cease decoding at any point in the bit stream and still produce exactly the same image that would have been encoded at the bit rate corresponding to the truncated bit stream In addition to producing a fully embedded bit stream, the EZW consistently produces compression results that are competitive with virtually all known compression algorithms on standard test images Yet this performance is achieved with a technique that requires absolutely no training, no pre-stored tables or codebooks, and requires no prior knowledge of the image source The EZW algorithm is based on four key concepts: (1) a discrete wavelet transform or hierarchical subband decomposition, (2) prediction of the absence of significant information across scales by exploiting the self-similarity inherent in images, (3) entropy-coded successive-approximation quantization, and (4) universal lossless data compression which is achieved via adaptive arithmetic coding >

http://dns2.asia.edu.tw/~ysho/YSHO-English/2000%20Engineering/PDF/IEE%20Tra%20Sig%20Pro41,%203445.pdf

Embedded image coding using zerotrees of wavelet coefficients

The performance of optimum vector quantizers subject to a conditional entropy constraint is studied. This new class of vector quantizers was originally suggested by Chou and Lookabaugh (1990). A locally optimal design of this kind of vector quantizer can be accomplished through a generalization of the well-known entropy-constrained vector quantizer (ECVQ) algorithm. This generalization of the ECVQ algorithm to a conditional entropy-constrained is called CECVQ, i.e., conditional ECVQ. Furthermore, we have extended the high-rate quantization theory to this new class of quantizers to obtain a new high-rate performance bound. The new performance bound is compared and shown to be consistent with bounds derived through conditional rate-distortion theory. A new algorithm for designing entropy-constrained vector quantizers was introduced by Garrido, Pearlman, and Finamore (see IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol.5, no.2, p.83-95, 1995), and is named entropy-constrained pairwise nearest neighbor (ECPNN). The algorithm is basically an entropy-constrained version of the pairwise nearest neighbor (ECPNN) clustering algorithm of Equitz (1989). By a natural extension of the ECPNN algorithm we develop another algorithm, called CECPNN, that designs conditional entropy-constrained vector quantizers. Through simulation results on synthetic sources, we show that CECPNN and CECVQ have very close distortion-rate performance. >

Conditional entropy-constrained vector quantization: high-rate theory and design algorithms

A transform tree code, theoretically optimal for stationary Gaussian sources and the squared-error distortion measure at all rates, is adaptively applied in a blockwise fashion to the encoding of images. The rate of the basic tree code is 0.5 bits/pel and the overhead rate ranges from .24 to .36 bits/pel. A smoothing and block quantization is used for effective reduction of the rate for transmitting a set of eigenvalue estimates, which comprise the main contribution to the overhead. In encoding simulations the adaptation with smoothing and quantization gave better performance with a block size of 16 at lower search intensity and with more uniformity and less blocking effect. At a block size of 32, where the reconstruction quality is higher, the same adaptation technique yielded nearly the same results as the non-adaptive one at the same overall rate, but with a savings of search and computational complexity.

Adaptive transform tree coding of images

It is proved that optimal coding of image subbands achieves the ultimate rate-distortion performance for Gaussian sources with squared-error distortion. Optimal performance is achieved only asymptotically with infinite-size source sequences. The approach of the rate-distortion function of finite-size sequences to its limit is investigated and a bound is derived that shows a potentially closer approach for coding subbands that for the full band. A suboptimal realization of an optimal tree coding method is used to encode both the full-band image and its subbands at 1.0 bit per pixel. The subband tree-coded image is more than 2 dB better in SNR and its overall performance is nearly comparable to that of the best schemes known to date. >

Tree coding of image sub-bands

Correction to Region-Based Wavelet Coding Methods for Digital Mammography

A novel approach for coding textured images is presented. The texture field is assumed to be a realization of a regular homogeneous random field, which can have a mixed spectral distribution. On the basis of a 2D Wold-like decomposition, the field is represented as a sum of purely indeterministic, harmonic, and a countable number of evanescent fields. We present an algorithm for estimating and coding the texture model parameters, and show that the suggested algorithm yields high quality reconstructions at low bit rates. The model and the resulting coding algorithm are seen to be applicable to a wide variety of texture types found in natural images.

William A. Pearlman

Papers

Conditional entropy-constrained vector quantization: high-rate theory and design algorithms

Adaptive transform tree coding of images

Tree coding of image sub-bands

Correction to Region-Based Wavelet Coding Methods for Digital Mammography

Texture coding using a Wold decomposition model