Color Image Quantization Using Color Variation Measure

In this paper, a novel color image quantization algorithm is presented. This new algorithm addresses the question of how to incorporate the principle of human visual perception to color variation sensitivity into color image quantization process. Color variation measure (CVM) is calculated first in CIE Lab color space. CVM is used to evaluate color variation and to coarsely segment the image. Considering both color variation and homogeneity of the image, the number of colors that should be used for each segmented region can be determined. Finally, CF-tree algorithm is applied to classify pixels into their corresponding palette colors. The quantized error of our proposed algorithm is small due to the combination of human visual perception and color variation. Experimental results reveal the superiority of the proposed approach in solving the color image quantization problem