Fast codeword search algorithm for real-time codebook generation in adaptive VQ

Adaptive vector quantisation is used in image sequence coding where the code-book is updated continuously to keep track with the changing source statistics. Hence, for real-time video coding applications, both the processes of quantising the input vectors and updating the codebook are required to be fast. Since the nearest codeword search is involved in both these processes, a fast codeword search algorithm can make the coding process time efficient. The authors describe a proposed codeword search algorithm with reduced search space. The algorithm uses the mean value and the sum of the absolute differences as the two criteria to reject unlikely codewords, thereby saving a great deal of computational time, while introducing no more distortion than the conventional full search algorithm. Simulation results obtained confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in terms of computational complexity