A modification of the TPVD algorithm for data embedding

Abstract

Pixel-Value-Differencing (PVD) methods for data hiding have the advantage of a high payload. These algorithms have however the problem of overflow/underflow pixels, thus a location map for those pixels usually ignored when embedding the message is necessary. In this paper, we modified the Tri-way Pixel-Value Differencing method that removes the need of the location map and fix the problem. Our proposal replaces the table of ranges to estimate the amount of information to be embedded by a function based on the floor and ceil functions. As for the problem of overflow/underflow pixels we tackle it by means of a linear transformation. The linear transformation is based on the floor function, so information is lost therefore a location map to compensate for this data lost is necessary to recover the embedded message. The inclusion of the map in the algorithm is also discussed. The technique uses two steganographic methods, namely, the tri-way method to store the message and a reversible steganographic method to store the map needed to invert the linear function in order to recover the encoded message.