We introduce an entropy coding method to enhance the compression efficiency of JPEG. Because run-length coding and early-termination work more effectively for longer zero sequences, we extract ones and negative ones from the coefficients and reduce the magnitude of all coefficients by one. The extracted coefficients are encoded with a designated entropy coding method. The proposed method can transmit images in two parts progressively, where the first contains JPEG-compatible image with a small amount of degradation and the second is used to add fine details. Our method improves the compression ratio by more than 5% without sacrificing the efficiency of JPEG.

In this paper, we propose a high-throughput binary arithmetic coding architecture for CABAC (Context Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding) which is one of the entropy coding tools used in the H.264/AVC main and high profiles. The full CABAC encoding functions, including binarization, context model selection, arithmetic encoding and bits generation, are implemented in this proposal. The binarization and context model selection are implemented in a proposed binarizer, in which a FIFO is used to pack the binarization results and output 4 bins in one clock. The arithmetic encoding and bits generation are implemented in a four-stage pipeline with the encoding ability of 4 bins/clock. In order to improve the processing speed, the context variables access and update for 4 bins are paralleled and the pipeline path is balanced. Also, because of the outstanding bits issue, a bits packing and generation strategy for 4 bins paralleled processing is proposed. After implemented in verilog-HDL and synthesized with Synopsys Design Compiler using 90 nm libraries, this proposal can work at the clock frequency of 250 MHz and takes up about 58 K standard cells, 3.2 Kbits register files and 27.6 K bits ROM. The throughput of processing 1000 M bins per second can be achieved in this proposal for the HDTV applications.

Context-based adaptive variable length coding (CAVLC) is an entropy coding scheme employed in H.264/AVC for transform coefficient compression. The CAVLC encodes levels of nonzero-valued coefficients. Then indicates their positions with run_before which is number of zeros preceding each nonzero coefficient in scan order. In H.264, the run_before is coded using lookup tables depending on number of zero-valued coefficients that have not been coded. This paper presents an improved run_before coding method which encodes run_before using tables taking both zero-valued and nonzero-valued coefficients into consideration. Simulation results report that the proposed method yields an average of 4.40% bit rate reduction for run_before coding over H.264 baseline profile with intra-only coding structure. It corresponds to 0.52% bit rate saving over total bit rate on average.

Context-based Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding (CA-BAC) is adopted as an entropy coding tool for main profile of the video coding standard H.264/AVC. CABAC achieves higher degree of redundancy reduction by estimating the conditional probability of each binary symbol which is the input to the arithmetic coder. This paper presents an entropy coding method based on CABAC. In the proposed method, the binary symbol is coded using more precisely estimated conditional probability, thereby leading to performance improvement. We apply our method to the standard and evaluate its performance for different video sources and various quantization parameters (QP). Experiment results show that our method outperforms the original CABAC in term of coding efficiency, and the average bit-rate savings are up to 1.2%.

The error resilient entropy coding (EREC) provides efficient resynchronization method to the coded bitstream, which might be corrupted by transmission errors. The technique has been given more prominence, nowadays, because it achieves fast resynchronization without sizable overhead, and thereby provides graceful quality degradation according to the network conditions. This paper presents a novel framework to analyze the performance of EREC in terms of the error probability in decoding a basic resynchronization unit (RU) for various error prone networks. In order to show the feasibility of the proposed framework, this paper also proposes a novel EREC algorithm based on the slightly modified H.263 bitstream syntax. The proposed scheme minimizes the effect of errors on low frequency DCT coefficients and incorporates near optimal channel-matched searching pattern (SP), which guarantees the best possible quality of reproduced video. Given the number of bits generated for each RU, the near optimal SP is produced by the proposed iterative deterministic partial SP update method, which reduces the complexity of finding optimal solution, O((N-1)!), to O(m·N2). The proposed EREC algorithm significantly improves the decoded video quality, especially when the bit error rate is in the rage of 10-3-10-4. Up to 5 dB enhancement of the PSNR value was observed in a single video frame.

Many image and video compression algorithms work by splitting the image into blocks and producing variable-length code bits for each block data. If variable-length code data are transmitted consecutively over error-prone channel without any error protection technique, the receiving decoder cannot decode the stream properly. So the standard image and video compression algorithms insert some redundant information into the stream to provide some protection against channel errors. One of such redundancy is resynchronization marker, which enables the decoder to restart the decoding process from a known state in the event of transmission errors, but its frequent use should be restricted not to consume bandwidth too much. The Error Resilient Entropy Code (EREC) is well known method which can regain synchronization without any redundant information. It can work with the overall prefix codes, which many image compression methods use. This paper proposes an improvement to FEREC (Fast Error-Resilient Entropy Coding). It first calculates initial searching position according to bit lengths of consecutive blocks. Second, initial offset is decided using statistical distribution of long and short blocks, and initial offset is adjusted to insure all possible offset value can be examined. The proposed algorithm can speed up the construction of EREC slots, and can preserve compressed image quality in the event of transmission errors. The simulation result shows that the quality of transmitted image is enhanced about 0.3-3.5 dB compared with the existing FEREC when random channel error happens.

Reversible variable length codes (RVLCs), which make instantaneous decoding possible in both forward and backward directions, are exploited to code data stream in noisy enviroments. Because there is no redundancy in code words of RVLCs, RVLCs are suitable for very low bit-rate video coding. Golomb-Rice code, one of variable length code for infinite number of symbols, is widely used to encode exponentially distributed non-negative integers. We propose a reversible variable length code by modifying Golomb-Rice code, which is called parity check reversible Golomb-Rice code and abbreviated to P-RGR code. P-RGR code has the same code length distribution as GR code but can detect one-bit error in any arbitrary position of the code stream. The sets of P-RGR code words in both directions are identical so that they can be constructed by nearly the same algorithm. Furthermore, this paper also gives a general construction method for all instantaneously decodable RGR codes.

A zerotree image-coding scheme is introduced that effectively exploits the inter-scale self-similarities found in the octave decomposition by a wavelet transform. A zerotree is useful for efficiently coding wavelet coefficients; its efficiency was proved by Shapiro's EZW. In the EZW coder, wavelet coefficients are symbolized, then entropy-coded for further compression. In this paper, we analyze the symbols produced by the EZW coder and discuss the entropy for a symbol. We modify the procedure used for symbol-stream generation to produce lower entropy. First, we modify the fixed relation between a parent and children used in the EZW coder to raise the probability that a significant parent has significant children. The modified relation is flexibly modified again based on the observation that a significant coefficient is more likely to have significant coefficients in its neighborhood. The three relations are compared in terms of the number of symbols they produce.

The reconstruction of 3-D moving images from transmitted parameters describing position, attitude and shape variation of objects in a virtual 3-D space has been studied as an application of three dimensional (3-D) image communication. The shape information was obtained from a database that was built in advance. Since an appropriate database of 3-D object shapes needs to be developed, efficient storage of the shape data of the actual objects might become a key technology. This paper proposes an efficient entropy coding method of voxel map data obtained with shape measuring equipment. The proposed method converts the voxel map data into an octree and encodes their node information with conditional probability on the state of neighbor nodes sequentially, beginning with the upper hierarchy level. This method has the property of being able to extract information up to a given arbitrary hierarchy level because of its hierarchical characteristic. For implementation, two methods are proposed for reducing the large number of contexts, one uses 3-D isotropism, the other uses sample statistics. The experimental coding results using several sample data sets show that the proposed method can reduce the information volume by about 20% in comparison to the ordinary method using unconditional entropy. The binary voxel map of 512512512 can be represented by approximately 680 kbits.

A novel coding scheme using orthonormal wavelet transform is proposed. Various forms of transform coding and subband coding are first reviewed. Then a wavelet coding method is proposed adopting a new approach similar to the one used for transform coding. The approach differs to conventional ones which considers wavelet coding as a class of subband coding. Simulation work is carried out to evaluate the proposed coding method. Significant improvement is obtained in subjective quality, and some improvement is also obtained in signal to noise ratio. Wavelet coding is still in its early stage of development, but can be considered to be a promising technique for image coding.