Optimization of multiple region quantizer for Laplacian source

This paper proposes a multiple region quantizer composed of quantizers defined on different disjunctive regions of an input signal. In particular, for the two region and the three region cases, the paper provides a complete optimization of a multiple region companded quantizer for the Laplacian source of unit variance. The analysis of the multiple region quantizer is limited to a three region case due to the complexity of the optimization problem and due to the fact that much more complex multiple region quantizer models obtained for a higher number of regions could slightly improve the performances. Two-stage optimization is performed with respect to the number of reconstruction levels of each quantizer composing the considered multiple region companded quantizer and with respect to the region bounds. It is shown that optimal parameters depend only on the fractional part of the required average bit rate. In order to design the three region optimal quantizer, Lloyd–Max's algorithm and Newton–Kantorovich iterative method are used with the three region optimal companded quantizer as the initial solution. The gradient Newton–Kantorovich iterative method is used to provide better convergence speed than Lloyd–Max's algorithm, which is essential in cases where effective initialization solution of Lloyd–Max's algorithm is missing. It is shown that the three region optimal companded quantizer have signal to quantization noise ratio value close to the one of the three region optimal quantizer, where a simpler design procedure is the benefit of the three region optimal companded quantizer over the three region optimal one.