An optimal design procedure for intraband vector quantized subband coding

Subband coding with vector quantization is addressed in this paper. Forming the data vectors from both between and within the subbands is considered. The former of these two schemes is referred to as interband coding and the latter as intraband coding. Interband coder design is relatively straightforward since the design of the single codebook involved follows readily from a representative set of interband data vectors. Intraband coder design is more complicated since it entails the selection of a vector dimension and a bit-rate for each subband. The main contribution of this work is an optimal methodology for intraband subband vector quantizer design. The problem formulation includes constraints on the bit-rate and the encoding complexity and is solved with nonlinear programming methods. Subband vector quantization image coding in conjunction with a human visual system model is thoroughly investigated. Results of a large number of experiments indicate that the optimal intraband coder yields superior results from quantitative as well as subjective points of view than the interband coder for comparable bit-rates. This improvement becomes more pronounced as the computational complexity of the intraband encoder is allowed to increase.<>