Combined significance map coding for still image compression

Set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT) was known for its relatively simple implementation and flexible scalability when it is combined with discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The authors propose a method called combined significance map coding (CSMC) to improve the coding efficiency of SPIHT when used with block-based discrete cosine transform (DCT). CSMC groups some blocks and encodes the combined significance map of one to several blocks together. Lots of bits spent in significance map coding can be saved when the trees constructed with block DCT coefficients have similar locality. From our simulation results, CSMC improves significantly when in comparison with the original SPIHT coder using DWT and DCT. It also yields better performance than JPEG2000, and even outperforms the non-scalable H.264 intra-mode coder for some test images. No coding table is required, and fine rate/quality scalability property of SPIHT is still preserved.