A MSB-biased self-organizing feature map for still color image compression

A novel most significant bit (MSB) biased self organizing feature map (SOFM) algorithm, suitable for VLSI implementation, has been proposed for digital still color image compression. By encoding each pixel´s RGB values with a negative 128 bias and presenting only its least significant 7-bit magnitude to the SOFM network, 3 to 6 dB improvement in PSNR can be achieved in the reconstructed images. Based on this new encoding scheme, which requires only a simple selective complementation, the entire SOFM network can be significantly scaled down without severely scarifying the visual quality of the displayed images.