A Coded Aperture as a Key for Information Hiding Designed by Physics-in-the-Loop Optimization

Tomoki MINAMATA; Hiroki HAMASAKI; Hiroshi KAWASAKI; Hajime NAGAHARA; Satoshi ONO

doi:10.1587/transinf.2023MUP0003

IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information

A Coded Aperture as a Key for Information Hiding Designed by Physics-in-the-Loop Optimization

Tomoki MINAMATA, Hiroki HAMASAKI, Hiroshi KAWASAKI, Hajime NAGAHARA, Satoshi ONO

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This paper proposes a novel application of coded apertures (CAs) for visual information hiding. CA is one of the representative computational photography techniques, in which a patterned mask is attached to a camera as an alternative to a conventional circular aperture. With image processing in the post-processing phase, various functions such as omnifocal image capturing and depth estimation can be performed. In general, a watermark embedded as high-frequency components is difficult to extract if captured outside the focal length, and defocus blur occurs. Installation of a CA into the camera is a simple solution to mitigate the difficulty, and several attempts are conducted to make a better design for stable extraction. On the contrary, our motivation is to design a specific CA as well as an information hiding scheme; the secret information can only be decoded if an image with hidden information is captured with the key aperture at a certain distance outside the focus range. The proposed technique designs the key aperture patterns and information hiding scheme through evolutionary multi-objective optimization so as to minimize the decryption error of a hidden image when using the key aperture while minimizing the accuracy when using other apertures. During the optimization process, solution candidates, i.e., key aperture patterns and information hiding schemes, are evaluated on actual devices to account for disturbances that cannot be considered in optical simulations. Experimental results have shown that decoding can be performed with the designed key aperture and similar ones, that decrypted image quality deteriorates as the similarity between the key and the aperture used for decryption decreases, and that the proposed information hiding technique works on actual devices.

Publication: IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information Vol.E107-D No.1 pp.29-38

Publication Date: 2024/01/01

Publicized: 2023/09/28

Online ISSN: 1745-1361

DOI: 10.1587/transinf.2023MUP0003

Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Enriched Multimedia — Media technologies opening up the future —)

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Authors

Tomoki MINAMATA
  Kagoshima University
Hiroki HAMASAKI
  Kagoshima University
Hiroshi KAWASAKI
  Kyushu University
Hajime NAGAHARA
  Osaka University
Satoshi ONO
  Kagoshima University

Keyword

information hiding, visual cryptography, coded aperture imaging, computational photography, evolutionary computation, physics-in-the-loop optimization

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Tomoki MINAMATA, Hiroki HAMASAKI, Hiroshi KAWASAKI, Hajime NAGAHARA, Satoshi ONO, "A Coded Aperture as a Key for Information Hiding Designed by Physics-in-the-Loop Optimization" in IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information, vol. E107-D, no. 1, pp. 29-38, January 2024, doi: 10.1587/transinf.2023MUP0003.
Abstract: This paper proposes a novel application of coded apertures (CAs) for visual information hiding. CA is one of the representative computational photography techniques, in which a patterned mask is attached to a camera as an alternative to a conventional circular aperture. With image processing in the post-processing phase, various functions such as omnifocal image capturing and depth estimation can be performed. In general, a watermark embedded as high-frequency components is difficult to extract if captured outside the focal length, and defocus blur occurs. Installation of a CA into the camera is a simple solution to mitigate the difficulty, and several attempts are conducted to make a better design for stable extraction. On the contrary, our motivation is to design a specific CA as well as an information hiding scheme; the secret information can only be decoded if an image with hidden information is captured with the key aperture at a certain distance outside the focus range. The proposed technique designs the key aperture patterns and information hiding scheme through evolutionary multi-objective optimization so as to minimize the decryption error of a hidden image when using the key aperture while minimizing the accuracy when using other apertures. During the optimization process, solution candidates, i.e., key aperture patterns and information hiding schemes, are evaluated on actual devices to account for disturbances that cannot be considered in optical simulations. Experimental results have shown that decoding can be performed with the designed key aperture and similar ones, that decrypted image quality deteriorates as the similarity between the key and the aperture used for decryption decreases, and that the proposed information hiding technique works on actual devices.
URL: https://global.ieice.org/en_transactions/information/10.1587/transinf.2023MUP0003/_p

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@ARTICLE{e107-d_1_29,
author={Tomoki MINAMATA, Hiroki HAMASAKI, Hiroshi KAWASAKI, Hajime NAGAHARA, Satoshi ONO, },
journal={IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information},
title={A Coded Aperture as a Key for Information Hiding Designed by Physics-in-the-Loop Optimization},
year={2024},
volume={E107-D},
number={1},
pages={29-38},
abstract={This paper proposes a novel application of coded apertures (CAs) for visual information hiding. CA is one of the representative computational photography techniques, in which a patterned mask is attached to a camera as an alternative to a conventional circular aperture. With image processing in the post-processing phase, various functions such as omnifocal image capturing and depth estimation can be performed. In general, a watermark embedded as high-frequency components is difficult to extract if captured outside the focal length, and defocus blur occurs. Installation of a CA into the camera is a simple solution to mitigate the difficulty, and several attempts are conducted to make a better design for stable extraction. On the contrary, our motivation is to design a specific CA as well as an information hiding scheme; the secret information can only be decoded if an image with hidden information is captured with the key aperture at a certain distance outside the focus range. The proposed technique designs the key aperture patterns and information hiding scheme through evolutionary multi-objective optimization so as to minimize the decryption error of a hidden image when using the key aperture while minimizing the accuracy when using other apertures. During the optimization process, solution candidates, i.e., key aperture patterns and information hiding schemes, are evaluated on actual devices to account for disturbances that cannot be considered in optical simulations. Experimental results have shown that decoding can be performed with the designed key aperture and similar ones, that decrypted image quality deteriorates as the similarity between the key and the aperture used for decryption decreases, and that the proposed information hiding technique works on actual devices.},
keywords={},
doi={10.1587/transinf.2023MUP0003},
ISSN={1745-1361},
month={January},}

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TY - JOUR
TI - A Coded Aperture as a Key for Information Hiding Designed by Physics-in-the-Loop Optimization
T2 - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SP - 29
EP - 38
AU - Tomoki MINAMATA
AU - Hiroki HAMASAKI
AU - Hiroshi KAWASAKI
AU - Hajime NAGAHARA
AU - Satoshi ONO
PY - 2024
DO - 10.1587/transinf.2023MUP0003
JO - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SN - 1745-1361
VL - E107-D
IS - 1
JA - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
Y1 - January 2024
AB - This paper proposes a novel application of coded apertures (CAs) for visual information hiding. CA is one of the representative computational photography techniques, in which a patterned mask is attached to a camera as an alternative to a conventional circular aperture. With image processing in the post-processing phase, various functions such as omnifocal image capturing and depth estimation can be performed. In general, a watermark embedded as high-frequency components is difficult to extract if captured outside the focal length, and defocus blur occurs. Installation of a CA into the camera is a simple solution to mitigate the difficulty, and several attempts are conducted to make a better design for stable extraction. On the contrary, our motivation is to design a specific CA as well as an information hiding scheme; the secret information can only be decoded if an image with hidden information is captured with the key aperture at a certain distance outside the focus range. The proposed technique designs the key aperture patterns and information hiding scheme through evolutionary multi-objective optimization so as to minimize the decryption error of a hidden image when using the key aperture while minimizing the accuracy when using other apertures. During the optimization process, solution candidates, i.e., key aperture patterns and information hiding schemes, are evaluated on actual devices to account for disturbances that cannot be considered in optical simulations. Experimental results have shown that decoding can be performed with the designed key aperture and similar ones, that decrypted image quality deteriorates as the similarity between the key and the aperture used for decryption decreases, and that the proposed information hiding technique works on actual devices.
ER -

IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information