Perceptual image compression with wavelet transform
A perceptual image compression method by using the wavelet transform is proposed in this work. This method differs from conventional wavelet coding schemes by incorporating Human Visual System (HVS) characteristics in the quantization stage. Instead of encoding amplitudes of wavelet coefficients directly, we investigate the coding of contrasts of each resolution. The resulting compression scheme is able to distribute visual errors uniformly over the whole image. Thus, the visual artifact at low bit rate is minimized. Experimental results are given to show the superior visual performance of the new method in comparison with those of the conventional wavelet coders.