Image segmentation in compressed domain

We propose a direct image segmentation algorithm in the JPEG compressed domain. The algorithm features extracting statistical parameters from direct cosine transform (DCT) coefficients without its inverse transform, and growing regions in line with JPEG compression seamlessly in blocks of 8 x 8 pixels. In comparison with the latest research efforts in region-based image segmentation, our proposed algorithm achieves significant advantages, including (1) no iteration is involved, (2) no full decompression is required, and (3) segmentation performance is competitive. (C) 2003 SPIE and IST.