WO1998019273A1 - Transmission d'image - Google Patents

Transmission d'image Download PDF

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Publication number
WO1998019273A1
WO1998019273A1 PCT/AU1997/000724 AU9700724W WO9819273A1 WO 1998019273 A1 WO1998019273 A1 WO 1998019273A1 AU 9700724 W AU9700724 W AU 9700724W WO 9819273 A1 WO9819273 A1 WO 9819273A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
image
tile
priority
accumulator
spatial
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/AU1997/000724
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Donald James Bone
Original Assignee
Commonwealth Scientific And Industrial Research Organisation
Australian National University
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Commonwealth Scientific And Industrial Research Organisation, Australian National University filed Critical Commonwealth Scientific And Industrial Research Organisation
Priority to AU46938/97A priority Critical patent/AU721187B2/en
Publication of WO1998019273A1 publication Critical patent/WO1998019273A1/fr

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06T—IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL
    • G06T9/00—Image coding
    • G06T9/40—Tree coding, e.g. quadtree, octree
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
    • H04N19/30—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using hierarchical techniques, e.g. scalability
    • H04N19/36—Scalability techniques involving formatting the layers as a function of picture distortion after decoding, e.g. signal-to-noise [SNR] scalability
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
    • H04N19/60—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using transform coding
    • H04N19/63—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using transform coding using sub-band based transform, e.g. wavelets
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
    • H04N19/60—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using transform coding
    • H04N19/63—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using transform coding using sub-band based transform, e.g. wavelets
    • H04N19/64—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using transform coding using sub-band based transform, e.g. wavelets characterised by ordering of coefficients or of bits for transmission
    • H04N19/645—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using transform coding using sub-band based transform, e.g. wavelets characterised by ordering of coefficients or of bits for transmission by grouping of coefficients into blocks after the transform
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
    • H04N19/30—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using hierarchical techniques, e.g. scalability
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
    • H04N19/60—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using transform coding

Definitions

  • This invention relates to a system for and method of image transmission.
  • the invention has particular application to progressive image transmission systems.
  • Progressive image transmission has the advantage that the user can quite quickly see an approximation to the full image and can make decisions on that basis to terminate or react in some other way to the transmission at the earliest possible point.
  • the wavelet transform divides the image into spatial tiles and it is only possible to view the DWT in this way because in general, it is only useful from the point of view of compression to hierarchically decompose the image on the wavelet basis to the point that the scaling function (DC) components are spatially decorrelated. For most images a depth of 3-5 levels in the hierarchy is sufficient to achieve this.
  • the coefficients in the wavelet domain can then be collected into groups of components for which the centres of the corresponding basis function lie within a given spatial region of the image.
  • FIG 2 which illustrates a Mallet - style hierarchical wavelet decomposition with the components which constitute a spatial tile
  • the collection of coefficients in the wavelet domain can be thought of as a spatial tile with one DC component (at the top left of FIG 2), and an hierarchy of AC components in a scale hierarchy mimicking the structure of the image subbands .
  • FIG 3 illustrates a tiled wavelet coding in which the components of the standard Mallet style hierarchy are re-ordered to form spatial tiles whose arrangement follows that of the associated DC component in the standard Mallet hierarchy.
  • Each tile in a tiled representation of an image is represented as a stream of bits.
  • One known manner of encoding a tile into a bit stream is that the resulting representation is embedded.
  • An embedded coding is one in which the bits representing the image have been structured in a single stream which can be truncated at any point so that an approximation to the image can be generated from the information to that point and such that approximation has close to optimal distortion for the proportion of the information received.
  • Embedded encodings are well known. The simplest embedded encoding re-orders the bit planes so that the most significant bits are sent first. Simple run length encoding is then able to achieve some compression while retaining the embedded character of the representation. Such methods do not result in great compression.
  • the present invention aims to provide an alternative to known progressive image transmission systems and methods .
  • This invention in one aspect resides broadly in a method of progressively transmitting an image in which image compression techniques rely on spatial tiling of the image, the method including :- allocating variable priority values to spatial regions within the image whereby a receiver of a transmitted image can interactively define the spatial focus of the image during transmission thereof.
  • variable priority values are allocated to independent spatially localised tiles within the image by encoding an embedded representation such that truncations of the representations for each tile can be used to generate valid approximations to the tiles.
  • the method further includes : - establishing an algorithm at each end of the transmission to determine the ordering of the information from the tiles.
  • the bits are weighted by assigning a priority index for each tile, the priority index comprising a first unsigned integer having a sufficient number of bits to facilitate fine increments of priority.
  • the priority index for each tile is an integer within a predetermined range and that the method further includes : - transmitting a number of bits from the tile stream which equals the priority index.
  • the bits in the bitstring representation of each tile are preferably weighted in accordance with the length of each bitstring.
  • the method may also include : - assigning a priority accumulator to each tile, the priority accumulator comprising a second unsigned integer value ; scanning the tiles in a preset order and at each pass thereof incrementing the priority accumulator of each tile by the priority index, and transmitting a quantity of information each time the accumulator overflows.
  • the method of the present invention is suitable for implementation by appropriate software or purpose built hardware .
  • this invention resides broadly in an image transmission system for progressively transmitting an image in which image compression techniques rely on spatial tiling of the image, the system includin :- prioritising means for allocating variable priority values to spatial regions within the image whereby a receiver of a transmitted image can interactively define the spatial focus of the image during transmission thereof .
  • system further includes : - separating means for separating the bitstreams associated with each tile, and weighting means for weighting each bit.
  • system may also include :- means for establishing an algorithm at each end of the transmission to determine the ordering of the information from the tiles.
  • the system includes: assigning means for assigning a priority accumulator to each tile, the priority accumulator comprising a second unsigned integer value, scanning means for scanning the tiles in a preset order and at each pass thereof incrementing the priority accumulator of each tile by the priority index, and transmitting means for transmitting a quantity of information each time the accumulator overflows.
  • FIGS 1 to 3 illustrate known tiled image representation techniques as described above;
  • FIG 4 illustrates the bitstrings resulting from the embedded coding of each spatial tile, and
  • FIG 5 illustrates the priority variables in accordance with the present invention from a series of scans of one tile.
  • the present invention utilises a transformation wherein the transformed representation of the image can be considered to be organised as spatial tiles. Although in the most general case the tiles could be single pixels or single coefficients of some transformation, this does not lead to efficient implementation and it is preferred that the nature of the spatial tiling implies no interdependence between the spatial tiles in the decoding.
  • the encoding of the tile into a bitstream is also preferably done in such a way that the resulting representation is embedded.
  • the present invention generalises the concept of embedded encoding to some extent in that the method of the present invention embeds the representation of each tile in the usual sense.
  • the separation of the streams associated with each tile facilities the incorporation of spatial weighting into the determination of the significance of each bit in the stream. This is referred to as spatial prioritisation.
  • spatial prioritisation In applications where some spatial regions of the image have priority over other spatial regions, bits from some blocks will be less important than bits from other blocks.
  • the system of the present invention is implemented without significant bitstream overheads and tile index information is not transmitted.
  • a simple algorithm is established at each end of the transmission to determine the ordering of the information from the tiles.
  • the encoded image has the form of an array of bit strings, one associated with each spatial tile.
  • the server scans through this array and at each tile it must decide how many bits to send for this scan for each tile.
  • a number of options are available and require that when the server decides to send a given number of bits from a given tile string, the client/receiver can decide to receive the same number of bits and put them in the same tile.
  • the priority index for each tile has the form of an unsigned integer with a sufficient number of bits to allow adequately fine increments of priority.
  • the simplest arrangement is thus to use an integer in some range such as 0 .... 32 as the tile priority and send a number of bits from the tile stream which equals the priority index.
  • FIG 4 illustrates the bitstrings formed by the embedded coding of each spatial tile.
  • the length of the string associated with each tile is related to the amount of information on the tile such that the longer the string the more information and vice versa.
  • a simple priority coding scheme a situation can arise where two tiles of quite differing complexity are given the same priority and their bits will be transmitted in such a way that the less significant bits from the tile with the shorter bit string will be sent before more significant bits from the tile with the longer bitstring.
  • This situation can be partially corrected by weighting the spatial priorities by the length of each bitstring. The weighting need not be exact and can be compressed thereby ensuring that full transmission of the image finds each tile completing at approximately the same time.
  • the density of information for each tile will vary from bitplane to bitplane - with some tiles having no information in the upper bitplanes but a lot of low amplitude information, thereby producing a lot of bits for the final bitplanes.
  • most tiles eventually have all their bits as refinement bits and the number of bits per tile will be the same for each tile in the lower bitplanes. This means that the bitplanes will not remain in step even with this weighting.
  • the decoder it is advantageous for the decoder to know when a bitplane is complete. If the unit of information transmitted from the server is a single tile bitplane, then equal spatial priority from all tiles will ensure that the bitplanes from all tiles will be delivered in step. This has the disadvantage that the embedding within the bitplane for each tile is no longer relevant. This also means that the priority of each bitplane can be adjusted as part of the process. It is possible to breakdown each tile bitplane into smaller units however this complicates implementation and can lead to greater memory requirements in server and client.
  • bitstring for the tile into sequential substrings corresponding to individual tile bitplanes (or smaller units) offers the possibility of finer control over the prioritisation as a function if bitplane depth while maintaining the strict ordering of the bitplanes within the tile.
  • the preferred approach is deterministic. As illustrated in FIG 5 which illustrates the priority variables from a series of scans of one tile, this is achieved by assigning another unsigned integer value to each tile which integer value is termed the priority accumulator.
  • the tiles are scanned in a preset order and at each pass the priority accumulator of each tile is incremented by the priority index. If the priority accumulator plus the priority index is greater than the priority limit, than an overflow of the accumulator will result.
  • the server then sends the next chunk of data and the accumulator loses the overflow bit. Careful choice of the range of the priority counter and the size of the priority index result in regular updates for each tile with a controlled probability.
  • a sequence of scans on a single tile is illustrated in FIG 5.
  • the client/receiver and server communicate any changes in the priority step of the tiles.
  • the priority accumulator is not modified. If the priority is a simple function of the location of the tile then this does not involve a large amount of data being communicated, thereby allowing the client/receiver to interactively control the transmission when a duplex line is available.
  • the method in accordance with the present invention can have numerous applications.
  • a user with a low band-with access to the InterNet such as a satellite or digital mobile (GSM) connection ion the field may need to view images available on the web.
  • the user dials in and runs Netscape, connects to the homepage holding the images which could be an image database and clicks on to view some images.
  • the user may looking for images with certain characteristics but is unaware in advance which images are suitable, but will recognise them as such when seen.
  • Standard image transfer within Netscape can be very slow via modem.
  • a fuzzy version of the image quickly appears on the user's screen and quite soon it is possible to recognise the basic features of the image.
  • the image continues to be downloaded but the image gets rapidly clearer in the nominated area and remains fuzzy elsewhere. After only a fraction of the image has been transmitted, the user may have seen all that is necessary and a decision can be made as to whether the image is required.
  • a user can select a point or region in the image and have the server send data preferentially from that region.
  • the present invention allows an arbitrary image to be transmitted across a network such that at any point in the transmission the client/user/receiver requesting the image can prioritise regions of the image so that the information transmitted will preferentially enhance the image in a manner which varies across the image smoothly.
  • the user After transmission of as little as 1-2% of an image, the user has enough information to identify regions of potential interest. The user can then click on that area and define a smooth priority map which can be communicated to the server such that the image will appear to resolve smoothly and progressively around the selected region.
  • the user can redefine the priority without the server having to reformat the image representation at the transmission end and without having to resend any information.

Abstract

L'invention concerne un procédé de transmission progressive d'image, dans lequel la compression d'image fait appel à des techniques de pavage spatial de l'image. Des valeurs de priorité variables sont allouées à des régions spatiales dans l'image, ce qui permet à un récepteur de l'image transmise de pouvoir définir, de manière interactive, la focalisation spatiale de l'image durant sa transmission.
PCT/AU1997/000724 1996-10-28 1997-10-28 Transmission d'image WO1998019273A1 (fr)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
AU46938/97A AU721187B2 (en) 1996-10-28 1997-10-28 Image transmission

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
AUPO3293A AUPO329396A0 (en) 1996-10-28 1996-10-28 Image transmission
AUPO3293 1996-10-28

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO1998019273A1 true WO1998019273A1 (fr) 1998-05-07

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Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/AU1997/000724 WO1998019273A1 (fr) 1996-10-28 1997-10-28 Transmission d'image

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AU (1) AUPO329396A0 (fr)
WO (1) WO1998019273A1 (fr)

Cited By (15)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2000004721A1 (fr) * 1998-07-15 2000-01-27 Digital Accelerator Corporation Codage d'image agrandissable base sur la region
EP1030524A1 (fr) * 1999-02-19 2000-08-23 Alcatel Méthode pour coder une image numérique et codeur
WO2001003442A1 (fr) * 1999-07-06 2001-01-11 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Systeme et procede de codage de video evolutive
WO2001017269A1 (fr) * 1999-08-27 2001-03-08 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Codage echelonnable
WO2001054413A1 (fr) * 2000-01-21 2001-07-26 Stentor, Inc. Procede et dispositif de compression de donnees a transformees
WO2001067771A2 (fr) * 2000-03-08 2001-09-13 Siemens Aktiengesellschaft Procede pour traiter une image numerisee, et systeme de communication d'image
FR2822331A1 (fr) * 2001-03-19 2002-09-20 Canon Kk Codage et decodage de signal numerique, avec segmentation hierarchique
WO2004006583A1 (fr) 2002-07-08 2004-01-15 T-Mobile Deutschland Gmbh Procede permettant de transmettre des informations supplementaires au moyen d'un procede de compression de donnees faisant appel a une transmission de pixels classes par ordre de priorite
WO2004008766A1 (fr) 2002-07-10 2004-01-22 T-Mobile Deutschland Gmbh Procede de transmission de donnees supplementaires dans le cadre d'une transmission de donnees video
US6711297B1 (en) 1998-07-03 2004-03-23 University Of Pittsburgh - Of The Commonwealth System Of Higher Education Methods and apparatus for dynamic transfer of image data
US6804403B1 (en) 1998-07-15 2004-10-12 Digital Accelerator Corporation Region-based scalable image coding
US6917711B1 (en) 1998-08-10 2005-07-12 Digital Accelerator Corporation Embedded quadtree wavelets in image compression
US6925208B1 (en) 2002-05-04 2005-08-02 Stentor, Inc. Methods and apparatus for partitioning transform data
US7020342B1 (en) 1999-08-27 2006-03-28 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Scalable coding
US7245663B2 (en) 1999-07-06 2007-07-17 Koninklijke Philips Electronis N.V. Method and apparatus for improved efficiency in transmission of fine granular scalable selective enhanced images

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US5122875A (en) * 1991-02-27 1992-06-16 General Electric Company An HDTV compression system
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US5122875A (en) * 1991-02-27 1992-06-16 General Electric Company An HDTV compression system
US5315670A (en) * 1991-11-12 1994-05-24 General Electric Company Digital data compression system including zerotree coefficient coding
WO1997033425A1 (fr) * 1996-03-05 1997-09-12 Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (Publ) Codage progressif d'images

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS FOR VIDEO TECHNOLOGY, Volume 6, No. 3, June 1996, SAID and PEARLMAN, "A New, Fast and Efficient Image Codec Based on Set Partitioning in Hierarchical Trees", pages 243-250. *

Cited By (21)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US7280702B2 (en) 1998-07-03 2007-10-09 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Methods and apparatus for dynamic transfer of image data
US6711297B1 (en) 1998-07-03 2004-03-23 University Of Pittsburgh - Of The Commonwealth System Of Higher Education Methods and apparatus for dynamic transfer of image data
US6804403B1 (en) 1998-07-15 2004-10-12 Digital Accelerator Corporation Region-based scalable image coding
WO2000004721A1 (fr) * 1998-07-15 2000-01-27 Digital Accelerator Corporation Codage d'image agrandissable base sur la region
US6917711B1 (en) 1998-08-10 2005-07-12 Digital Accelerator Corporation Embedded quadtree wavelets in image compression
EP1030524A1 (fr) * 1999-02-19 2000-08-23 Alcatel Méthode pour coder une image numérique et codeur
WO2001003442A1 (fr) * 1999-07-06 2001-01-11 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Systeme et procede de codage de video evolutive
US6263022B1 (en) 1999-07-06 2001-07-17 Philips Electronics North America Corp. System and method for fine granular scalable video with selective quality enhancement
CN100466732C (zh) * 1999-07-06 2009-03-04 皇家菲利浦电子有限公司 用于可定标视频编码的系统与方法
US7245663B2 (en) 1999-07-06 2007-07-17 Koninklijke Philips Electronis N.V. Method and apparatus for improved efficiency in transmission of fine granular scalable selective enhanced images
WO2001017269A1 (fr) * 1999-08-27 2001-03-08 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Codage echelonnable
US7020342B1 (en) 1999-08-27 2006-03-28 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Scalable coding
WO2001054413A1 (fr) * 2000-01-21 2001-07-26 Stentor, Inc. Procede et dispositif de compression de donnees a transformees
WO2001067771A3 (fr) * 2000-03-08 2002-02-07 Siemens Ag Procede pour traiter une image numerisee, et systeme de communication d'image
WO2001067771A2 (fr) * 2000-03-08 2001-09-13 Siemens Aktiengesellschaft Procede pour traiter une image numerisee, et systeme de communication d'image
FR2822331A1 (fr) * 2001-03-19 2002-09-20 Canon Kk Codage et decodage de signal numerique, avec segmentation hierarchique
US6925208B1 (en) 2002-05-04 2005-08-02 Stentor, Inc. Methods and apparatus for partitioning transform data
WO2004006583A1 (fr) 2002-07-08 2004-01-15 T-Mobile Deutschland Gmbh Procede permettant de transmettre des informations supplementaires au moyen d'un procede de compression de donnees faisant appel a une transmission de pixels classes par ordre de priorite
US7583843B2 (en) 2002-07-08 2009-09-01 T-Mobile Deutschland Gmbh Method for the transmission of additional information when using a method for compressing data by means of prioritizing pixel transmission
WO2004008766A1 (fr) 2002-07-10 2004-01-22 T-Mobile Deutschland Gmbh Procede de transmission de donnees supplementaires dans le cadre d'une transmission de donnees video
US7369154B2 (en) 2002-07-10 2008-05-06 T-Mobile Deutschland Gmbh Method for transmitting additional data within a video transmission

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