Wavelet tree classification and hybrid coding for image compression

A hybrid coding system that uses a combination of set partition in hierarchical trees (SPIHT) and vector quantisation (VQ) for image compression is presented. Here, the wavelet coefficients of the input image are rearranged to form the wavelet trees that are composed of the corresponding wavelet coefficients from all the subbands of the same orientation. A simple tree classifier has been proposed to group wavelet trees into two classes based on the amplitude distribution. Each class of wavelet trees is encoded using an appropriate procedure, specifically either SPIHT or VQ. Experimental results show that advantages obtained by combining the superior coding performance of VQ and efficient cross-subband prediction of SPIHT are appreciable for the compression task, especially for natural images with large portions of textures. For example, the proposed hybrid coding outperforms SPIHT by 0.38 dB in PSNR at 0.5 bpp for the Bridge image, and by 0.74 dB at 0.5 bpp for the Mandrill image.