Wavelet based image compression has been a focus of research in recent days. In this paper, we propose a compression technique based on modification of original EZW coding. In this lossy technique, we try to discard less significant information in the image data in order to achieve further compression with minimal effect on output image quality. The algorithm calculates weight of each subband and finds the subband with minimum weight in every level. This minimum weight subband in each level, that contributes least effect during image reconstruction, undergoes a threshold process to eliminate low-valued data in it. Zerotree coding is done next on the resultant output for compression. Different values of threshold were applied during experiment to see the effect on compression ratio and reconstructed image quality. The proposed method results in further increase in compression ratio with negligible loss in image quality.

Date Published: 21 November 2002
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 4790, Applications of Digital Image Processing XXV, (21 November 2002); doi: 10.1117/12.452376

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4790:
Applications of Digital Image Processing XXV
Andrew G. Tescher, Editor(s)