Low memory color image zerotree coding

Said and Pearlman´s set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT) algorithm (1996) is a well-known and efficient zerotree coding algorithm. However SPIHT´s high memory requirement is a major drawback for hardware implementation. We present a color image coding algorithm which requires much less memory during coding. Consequently the implementation complexity and hardware cost can be reduced significantly. Our experimental results show only a minor reduction of PSNR values when compared with the those obtained by the SPIHT codec illustrating well the trade-off between memory requirement and hardware simplicity