An object-oriented image coding scheme based on DWT and Markov Random Field

In this paper, we introduce an object-oriented image coding algorithm to differentiate regions of interest (ROI) in visual communications. Our scheme is motivated by the fact that in visual communications, image contents (objects) are not equally important. For a given network bandwidth budget, one should give the highest transmission priority to the most interesting object, and serve the remaining ones at lower priorities. We propose a DWT based Multiresolution Markov Random Field (MMRF) technique to segment image objects according to their textures. We show that this technique can effectively distinguish visual objects and assign them different priorities. This scheme can be integrated with our ROI compression coder, the Generalized Self-Similarity Tress (GST) codec, for networking applications.