Nested visual cryptography scheme

Anew nested visual cryptography scheme is proposed for n cooperated user groups. It can encode the secret image consists of black and white pixels into share images which should be distributed to each user in each group. To decode the secret, users in at least k out of n groups should be present, and at least p out of q users should provide their shares for each attendant group (where p and q can be distinct for each group). For the proposed scheme, the known scheme can be regarded as a simple instance which has only one user in each group. Compared to S-extended visual cryptography scheme, there is no need to enumerate all the user sets which can decode the secret.