Color image compression scheme based upon human vision properties

Summary form only given. We consider the compression of a still color image with very low distortion from the human eye point of view. The basic idea in this work is to take into account the variations of human eye/brain spatial resolution with color. The most natural way for an image processing researcher to perform such a scheme is to use a multiresolution analysis of the image to be coded before quantization and coding. Previous experiences connected with still grey value image compression/decompression scheme design have shown that the wavelet transform, Mallats algorithm, is a very efficient method for this purpose, particularly if real time implementation is under consideration, Hence we present a wavelet transform algorithm for a color image and we show how and with what performances the transformed image can be altered and reduced. We show that a quasi lossless compression/decompression scheme can be easily obtained with compression ratio up to 1:10. The results obtained after a large series of tests based on psychovisual estimations rather than on pure PSNR evaluation are in good accordance with the assumed properties of the human visual perceptive system.