Smooth side-match classified vector quantizer with variable blocksize

Although the side-match vector quantizer (SMVQ) reduces the bit rate, the image coding quality by SMVQ generally degenerates as the gray level transition across the boundaries of the neighboring blocks is increasing or decreasing. This study presents a smooth side-match method to select a state codebook according to the smoothness of the gray levels between neighboring blocks. This method achieves a higher PSNR and better visual perception than SMVQ does for the same bit rate. Moreover, to design codebooks, a genetic clustering algorithm that automatically finds the appropriate number of clusters is proposed. The proposed smooth side-match classified vector quantizer (SSM-CVQ) is thus a combination of three techniques: the classified vector quantization, the variable block size segmentation and the smooth side-match method. Experimental results indicate that SSM-CVQ has a higher PSNR and a lower bit rate than other methods. Furthermore, the Lena image can be coded by SSM-CVQ with 0.172 bpp and 32.49 dB in PSNR.     

Adaptive edge-based side-match finite-state classified vectorquantization with quadtree map

Vector quantization (VQ) is an effective image coding technique at low bit rate. The side-match finite-state vector quantizer (SMVQ) exploits the correlations between neighboring blocks (vectors) to avoid large gray level transition across block boundaries. A new adaptive edge-based side-match finite-state classified vector quantizer (classified FSVQ) with a quadtree map has been proposed. In classified FSVQ, blocks are arranged into two main classes, edge blocks and nonedge blocks, to avoid selecting a wrong state codebook for an input block. In order to improve the image quality, edge vectors are reclassified into 16 classes. Each class uses a master codebook that is different from the codebooks of other classes. In our experiments, results are given and comparisons are made between the new scheme and ordinary SMVQ and VQ coding techniques. As is shown, the improvement over ordinary SMVQ is up to 1.16 dB at nearly the same bit rate, moreover, the improvement over ordinary VQ can be up to 2.08 dB at the same bit rate for the image, Lena. Further, block boundaries and edge degradation are less visible because of the edge-vector classification. Hence, the perceptual image quality of classified FSVQ is better than that of ordinary SMVQ.     

Fast Image Coding Algorithm Using Indirect-Index Codebook Based on SMVQ

Side-match vector quantization (SMVQ) achieves better compression performance than vector quantization (VQ) in image coding due to its exploration of the dependence of adjacent pixels. However, SMVQ has the disadvantage of requiring excessive time during the process of coding. Therefore, this paper proposes a fast image coding algorithm using indirect-index codebook based on SMVQ (ⅡC-SMVQ) to reduce the coding time. Two codebooks, named indirect-index codebook (Ⅱ-codebook) and entire-state codebook (ES-codebook), are trained and utilized. The Ⅱ-codebook is trained by using the Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) algorithm from side-match information, while the ES-codebook is generated from the clustered residual blocks on the basis of the Ⅱ-codebook. According to the relationship between these two codebooks, the codeword in the Ⅱ-codebook can be regarded as an indicator to construct a fast search path, which guides in quickly determining the state codebook from the ES-codebook to encode the to-be-encoded block. The experimental results confirm that the coding time of the proposed scheme is shorter than that of the previous SMVQ.     

Image coding using variable-rate side-match finite-state vectorquantization

Future B-ISDN (broadband integrated services digital network) users will be able to send various kinds of information, such as voice, data, and image, over the same network and send information only when necessary. It has been recognized that variable-rate encoding techniques are more suitable than fixed-rate techniques for encoding images in a B-ISDN environment. A new variable-rate side-match finite-state vector quantization with a block classifier (CSMVQ) algorithm is described. In an ordinary fixed-rate SMVQ, the size of the state codebook is fixed. In the CSMVQ algorithm presented, the size of the state codebook is changed according to the characteristics of the current vector which can be predicted by a block classifier. In experiments, the improvement over SMVQ was up to 1.761 dB at a lower bit rate. Moreover, the improvement over VQ can be up to 3 dB at nearly the same bit rate.     

Novel image compression method using edge-oriented classifier andnovel predictive noiseless coding method

A new image compression approach is proposed in which variable block size technique is adopted, using quadtree decomposition, for coding images at low bit rates. In the proposed approach, low-activity regions, which usually occupy large areas in an image, were coded with a larger block size and the block mean is used to represent each pixel in the block. To preserve edge integrity, the classified vector quantisation (CVQ) technique is used to code high-activity regions. A new edge-oriented classifier without employing any thresholds is proposed for edge classification. A novel predictive noiseless coding (NPNC) method which exploits the redundancy between neighbouring blocks is also presented to efficiently code the mean values of low-activity blocks and the addresses of edge blocks. The bit rates required for coding the mean values and addresses can be significantly reduced by the proposed NPNC method. Experimental results show that excellent reconstructed images and higher PSNR were obtained     

Index-compressed vector quantisation based on index mapping

The authors introduce a novel coding technique which significantly improves the performance of the traditional vector quantisation (VQ) schemes at low bit rates. High interblock correlation in natural images results in a high probability that neighbouring image blocks are mapped to small subsets of the VQ codebook, which contains highly correlated codevectors. If, instead of the whole VQ codebook, a small subset is considered for the purpose of encoding neighbouring blocks, it is possible to improve the performance of traditional VQ schemes significantly. The performance improvement obtained with the new method is about 3 dB on average when compared with traditional VQ schemes at low bit rates. The method provides better performance than the JPEG coding standard at low bit rates, and gives comparable results with much less complexity than address VQ     

A new image coding algorithm using variable-rate side-matchfinite-state vector quantization

A new side-match vector quantizer, NewSMVQ, is presented in this paper. Three techniques are incorporated to improve the image quality, encoding speed, and bit rate for compressing images. The experimental result shows: i) the encoding time of NewSMVQ is almost 7 times faster than that of SMVQ (ordinary fixed-rate side-match vector quantizer) and CSMVQ (variable-rate SMVQ) and ii) NewSMVQ outperforms SMVQ and CSMVQ in terms of bit rate versus image quality tradeoffs.     

A new dynamic finite-state vector quantization algorithm for imagecompression

The picture quality of conventional memory vector quantization techniques is limited by their supercodebooks. This paper presents a new dynamic finite-state vector quantization (DFSVQ) algorithm which provides better quality than the best quality that the supercodebook can offer. The new DFSVQ exploits the global interblock correlation of image blocks instead of local correlation in conventional DFSVQs. For an input block, we search the closest block from the previously encoded data using the side-match technique. The closest block is then used as the prediction of the input block, or used to generate a dynamic codebook. The input block is encoded by the closest block, dynamic codebook or supercodebook. Searching for the closest block from the previously encoded data is equivalent to expand the codevector space; thus the picture quality achieved is not limited by the supercodebook. Experimental results reveal that the new DFSVQ reduces bit rate significantly and provides better visual quality, as compared to the basic VQ and other DFSVQs.     

Side-match tree-structured vector quantiser for image progressive coding

The balanced tree-structured vector quantiser is the traditional method of achieving image progressive coding. During image progressive coding, an image is decoded step-by-step in a decoder. The author proposes an unbalanced tree-structured vector quantiser to perform image progressive coding for a given series of rate thresholds. Side-match vector quantisation and its variants have been proposed to reduce the bit rate in image coding. The tree-structured vector quantiser and the side-match vector quantiser are combined to perform image progressive coding, achieving a better coding quality than that obtained using only the tree-structured vector quantiser at the same bit rate.     

Efficient coding of homogeneous textures using stochastic vectorquantisation and linear prediction

Vector quantisation (VQ) has been extensively used as an effective image coding technique. One of the most important steps in the whole process is the design of the codebook. The codebook is generally designed using the LBG algorithm which uses a large training set of empirical data that is statistically representative of the images to be encoded. The LBG algorithm, although quite effective for practical applications, is computationally very expensive and the resulting codebook has to be recalculated each time the type of image to be encoded changes. Stochastic vector quantisation (SVQ) provides an alternative way for the generation of the codebook. In SVQ, a model for the image is computed first, and then the codewords are generated according to this model and not according to some specific training sequence. The SVQ approach presents good coding performance for moderate compression ratios and different type of images. On the other hand, in the context of synthetic and natural hybrid coding (SNHC), there is always need for techniques which may provide very high compression and high quality for homogeneous textures. A new stochastic vector quantisation approach using linear prediction which is able to provide very high compression ratios with graceful degradation for homogeneous textures is presented. Owing to the specific construction of the method, there is no block effect in the synthetised image. Results, implementation details, generation of the bit stream and comparisons with the verification model of MPEG-4 are presented which prove the validity of the approach. The technique has been proposed as a still image coding technique in the SNHC standardisation group of MPEG     

支持向量机在边缘匹配矢量量化图像编码中的应用

针对边缘匹配矢量量化图像编码方法存在的出轨现象,提出一种引入支持向量机的方法.将分块后的样本图像输入支持向量机,建立区分边界区块与否的分类模型,并产生两种码书,对待编码区块,由支持向量机预测它的类型,选择相应的码书.实验结果表明,该方法处理灰度变化较大的边界和灰度变化平缓的非边界都有较好的效果.     

Gradient match and side match fractal vector quantizers for images

In this paper, we propose gradient match fractal vector quantizers (GMFVQs) and side match fractal vector quantizers (SMFVQs), which are two classes of finite state fractal vector quantizers (FSFVQs), for the image coding framework. In our previous work, we proposed the noniterative fractal block coding (FBC) technique to improve the decoding speed and the coding performance for conventional FBC techniques. To reduce the number of bits for denoting the fractal code of the range block, the concepts of the gradient match vector quantizers (GMVQs) and the side match vector quantizers (SMVQs) are employed to the noniterative FBC technique. Unlike ordinary vector quantizers, the super codebooks in the proposed GMFVQs and SMFVQs are generated from the affine-transformed domain blocks in the noniterative FBC technique. The codewords in the state codebook are dynamically extracted from the super codebook with the side-match and gradient-match criteria. The redundancy in the affine-transformed domain blocks is greatly reduced and the compression ratio can be significantly increased. Our simulation results show that 15%-20% of the bit rates in the noniterative FBC technique are saved by using the proposed GMFVQs.     

Hierarchical multirate vector quantization for image coding

The hierarchical multirate vector quantization (HMVQ) introduced in this paper is an improved form of vector quantization for digital image coding. The HMVQ uses block segmentation and a structure tree to divide an original image into several layers and sub-layers according to their grey scale contrast within blocks of a certain size. Variant bit-rates are used for block coding of different layers with the same codebook. The HMVQ technique provides high encoded image quality with very low bit-rates. The processing time for codebook generation is considerably reduced by using layer by layer optimization and subsampling in low detail regions. This technique also demonstrates flexibility of accurate reproduction in different detail regions.     

Unified variable-length transform coding and image-adaptive vectorquantization

The authors introduce an image coding method which unifies two image coding techniques: variable-length transform coding (VLTC) and image-adaptive vector quantization (IAVQ). In both VLTC and IAVQ, the image is first decomposed into a set of blocks. VLTC encodes each block in the transform domain very efficiently: however, it ignores the interblock correlation completely. IAVQ addresses the interblock correlation by using a codebook generated from a subset of the blocks to vector-quantize all blocks. Although the resulting codebook represents the input image better than a universal codebook generated from a large number of training images, it has to be transmitted separately as an overhead, therefore degrading the coding performance at high bit rates     

Dynamically restricted codebook-based vector quantisation scheme for mesh geometry compression

The transmission and storage of large amounts of vertex geometry data are required for rendering geometrically detailed 3D models. To alleviate bandwidth requirements, vector quantisation (VQ) is an effective lossy vertex data compression technique for triangular meshes. This paper presents a novel vertex encoding algorithm using the dynamically restricted codebook-based vector quantisation (DRCVQ). In DRCVQ, a parameter is used to control the encoding quality to get the desired compression rate in a range with only one codebook, instead of using different levels of codebooks to get different compression rate. During the encoding process, the indexes of the preceding encoded residual vectors which have high correlation with the current input vector are prestored in a FIFO so that both the codevector searching range and bit rate are averagely reduced. The proposed scheme also incorporates a very effective Laplacian smooth operator. Simulation results show that for various size of mesh models, DRCVQ can reduce PSNR degradation of about 2.5–6 dB at 10 bits per vertex comparative to the conventional vertex encoding method with stationary codebooks and, DRCVQ with arithmetic coding of codevector indexes and Laplacian smoothener can outperform the state-of-art Wavemesh for non-smooth meshes while performing slightly worse for smooth meshes. In addition, we use MPS as codevector search acceleration scheme so that the compression scheme is real-time.     

Improved moment preserving block truncation coding for image compression

A novel image compression scheme based on moment preserving block truncation coding (MPBTC) is introduced. To reduce the bit rate of the traditional MPBTC scheme, the block search order coding technique is employed to exploit the similarity among neighbouring image blocks. In addition, smooth blocks and complex blocks are processed using different methods. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme provides good image quality at a low bit rate.     

Digital image watermarking employing codebook in vector quantisation

Two simple watermarking techniques for a digital image are proposed. The methods employ a codebook in vector quantisation, and can extract watermark information from a watermarked image without an original image. Simulation results show that when the codebook of a larger size is used, a reconstructed image with a watermark has better quality than that without a watermark, and, for one of the proposed methods, a watermark size and the percentage of 0 bit contained in a watermark have almost no effect on PSNR for a reconstructed image.     

Subband Finite-State Vector Quantization for Still Image Coding

Subband coding (SBC) with vector quantization (VQ) has been shown to be an effective method for coding images at low bit rates. The basic idea of subband coding is to split up the frequency band of the signal and then to encode the subbands. Reconstruction is performed by decoding and merging the interpolated subband images. In VQ, the image to be encoded is first processed to yield a set of vectors. The input vectors are individually quantized to the closest codewords in the codebook. In this paper, we propose a new subband finite-state vector quantization (SBC-FSVQ) scheme that combines the SBC and the FSVQ. The frequency band decomposition of an image is carried out by means of 2D separable quadrature mirror filters (QMFs). In our coding scheme, we split the image spectrum into sixteen equally sized subbands. The FSVQ is used to improve the performance by using the correlations of the neighboring samples in the same subband. Thus, our SBC-FSVQ scheme not only has the advantages of the SBC-VQ scheme but also reduces the bit rate and improves the image quality. Experimental results are given and comparisons are made using our new schemes and some other coding techniques. Our technique yields good PSNR performance, for images both inside and outside a training set of five 512 × 512 images. In the experiments, it is found that our SBC-FSVQ scheme achieves the best PSNR performance at nearly the same bit rate.     

Optimised feature map finite-state vector quantisation for imagecoding

An optimised feature map finite-state vector quantisation (referred to as optimised FMFSVQ) is presented for image coding. Based on the block-based gradient descent search algorithm used for motion estimation in video coding, the optimised FMFSVQ system finds a neighbourhood-based optimal codevector for each input vector by extending the associated state codebook stage by stage, thus rendering each state quantiser a variable rate vector quantisation. The optimised FMFSVQ system can be interpreted as a cascade of a finite-state vector quantiser and classified vector quantisers. Furthermore, an adaptive optimised FMFSVQ is obtained. Experiments demonstrate the superior rate-distortion performance of the adaptive optimised FMFSVQ compared with the original adaptive FMFSVQ and the memoryless vector quantisation     

Side match and overlap match vector quantizers for images

A class of vector quantizers with memory that are known as finite state vector quantizers (FSVQs) in the image coding framework is investigated. Two FSVQ designs, namely side match vector quantizers (SMVQs) and overlap match vector quantizers (OMVQs), are introduced. These designs take advantage of the 2-D spatial contiguity of pixel vectors as well as the high spatial correlation of pixels in typical gray-level images. SMVQ and OMVQ try to minimize the granular noise that causes visible pixel block boundaries in ordinary VQ. For 512 by 512 gray-level images, SMVQ and OMVQ can achieve communication quality reproduction at an average of 1/2 b/pixel per image frame, and acceptable quality reproduction. Because block boundaries are less visible, the perceived improvement in quality over ordinary VQ is even greater. Owing to the structure of SMVQ and OMVQ, simple variable length noiseless codes can achieve as much as 60% bit rate reduction over fixed-length noiseless codes.