Low complexity code design for lossless and near-lossless side information source codes

We consider instantaneous side information source code (SISC) design. In the SISC configuration, the encoder describes source X to the decoder; the decoder uses this description and side information Y (which is not available at the encoder) to reconstruct X. Prior work on lossless and near-lossless SISC design demonstrates that globally optimal design is NP-hard. In this paper, we introduce a family of polynomial complexity code design algorithms that approximates the optimal solution for lossless and near-lossless SISCs. The algorithms may be used to design both Huffman and arithmetic SISCs for an axbitrary probability mass function p(x, y). Experimental results comparing the resulting performances to each other and to the theoretical limit are included.