Quadtree-guided wavelet image coding

Abstract

A hybrid of wavelet and quadtree image coding is introduced. It uses a quadtree predictive coding technique, having good rate/fidelity performance and very low complexity, to encode the baseband wavelet coefficients. The resulting quadtree decomposition of the baseband is then used to guide the encoding of higher frequency subbands, by indicating which of their coefficients require encoding and which do not. The result is a coding method with performance comparable to those of the best known wavelet coders, but with less complexity.