An efficient data-hiding method based on lossless JPEG2000 for a scalable and synchronized visualization of 3D terrains

Real-time on-line 3D visualization of terrain is a memory intensive process accompanied by considerably large data transfer across the network and thus data compression is inevitable. The upcoming standard of JPEG2000 is well suited for such network based transfers since it offers the additional advantage of resolution scalability resulting in incremental improvement of quality. The 3D visualization process is, essentially, the linking of the texture image with the terrain geometry obtained from DEM; the data are heterogeneous and normally involves more than one file. This work is concerned with the interleaving of these files into one jp2 file in a synchronized way so that the file format is conserved for compliance to the JPEG2000 standard. This synchronization is achieved by using a scalable data hiding method to embed the lossless wavelet transformed DEM in the corresponding lossless JPEG2000 coded texture. For the DEM and the texture, the level of transform is the same. With this approach the 3D visualization is efficient even if a small fraction of the initial data is transmitted.