Low bit rate, error resilient image communication using nonlinear pre and post-processing and progressive image transmission

The low bit rate, error resilience image coding method proposed here takes into account the content of an image and yields the least amount of degradation, caused by data loss, in those areas of the image which are of greater interest. This is achieved by employing a non-linear geometrical transform to add redundancy mainly to the region of interest (ROI). The nonlinear transform shifts most of the high frequency components of the image inside ROI to lower frequencies therefore, most of the high frequency components can be discarded. This is achieved effectively by employing the progressive mode of JPEG for encoding the nonlinear transformed image. Simulations show that this approach has acceptable performance. Moreover, the method proposed can be implemented through pre- and post-processing of the image data, without modification to the source codecs (e.g., JPEG).