Colour image compression based on the embedded zerotree wavelet

Abstract

In recent years, some of the most emerging applications in multimedia data processing are wireless/mobile multimedia systems and streaming content over the Internet. Both applications require flexible image data compression for storage or transmission proposals. Wavelet-based image compression schemes, such as the Embedded Zerotree Wavelet, obtain excellent results for these proposals and have been object of intensive research. In this work we propose an EZW-based compression method for colour images, based on the omission and restoration of wavelet subbands; our method achieves high compression rates and low computation times, combining, therefore, the advantages from both DCT and wavelet based compression algorithms. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.