A comparison of codebook generation techniques for vector quantization

The paper examines tradeoffs between speed and quality of codebook/generation algorithms and offers new ways to produce excellent codebooks with only modest computation cost. It compares the performance of four algorithms for constructing codebooks. The LBG method of Linde, Buzo, and Gray (1980) produces the best codebooks but requires the most computation. The method by Equitz (1987, 1989) produces codebooks nearly as good and requires somewhat less computation. It describes a new method based on eigenvector subdivision that produces useable codebooks in a fraction of the computational effort of either of the other methods. A fourth hybrid method yields very good codebooks with modest computation by using the eigenvector subdivision method to obtain a first approximation that is refined with LBG optimization.<>