Optimal time segmentation for signal modeling and compression

The idea of optimal joint time segmentation and resource allocation for signal modeling is explored with respect to arbitrary segmentations and arbitrary representation schemes. When the chosen signal modeling techniques can be quantified in terms of a cost function which is additive over distinct segments, a dynamic programming approach guarantees the global optimality of the scheme while keeping the computational requirements of the algorithm sufficiently low. Two immediate applications of the algorithm to LPC speech coding and to sinusoidal modeling of musical signals are presented