Group testing for image compression

Abstract

This paper presents the group testing for wavelets algorithm (GTM), which is a novel embedded wavelet-based image compression technique based on the concept of group testing. We explain how group testing is a generalization of the zerotree coding technique for wavelet-transformed images. We also show that Golomb coding is equivalent to Hwang's (Du and Hwang, 1993) group testing algorithm. GTW is similar to SPIHT (Said and Pearlman, 1996) but replaces SPIHT's sorting pass with a new group testing based method. Although no arithmetic coding is implemented, GTW performs competitively with SPIHT's arithmetic coding variant in terms of rate-distortion performance.