Improved Block Truncation Coding Using Extreme Mean Value Scaling and Block-Based High Speed Direct Binary Search
Block truncation coding (BTC) has been considered as an efficient compression technique for decades. However, the annoying blocking effect and false contour caused by low bit rate configuration are key problems. To solve these problems, many former halftoning-based BTCs are proposed. However, these schemes also induce another impulse noise issue while the previous issues still have room for improvement. To cope with this, the iteration-based halftoning is combined with BTC, namely Direct-Binary-Search BTC (DBSBTC) to solve the aforementioned problems. Moreover, the high-speed DBS halftoning method along with the block-based strategy yield even faster processing speed than some of the former halftoning-based BTC schemes. As documented in the experimental results, the proposed DBSBTC is superior to the former halftoning-base BTC schemes in terms of image quality, and which makes the former schemes as potential candidates for surveillance and computer vision applications.