Low-Complexity Perceptual JPEG2000 Encoder for Aerial Images

Abstract

A highly compressed image inevitably has visible compression artifacts. To minimize these artifacts, many compression algorithms exploit the varying sensitivity of the human visual system (HVS) to different frequencies. However, this sensitivity has typically been measured at the near-threshold level where distortion is just noticeable. Thus, it is unclear that the same sensitivity applies at the supra-threshold level where distortion is highly visible. In this paper, we measure the sensitivity of the HVS for several supra-threshold distortion levels based on our JPEG2000 distortion model. Then, a low-complexity JPEG2000 encoder using the measured sensitivity is described. For aerial images, the proposed encoder significantly reduces encoding time while maintaining superior visual quality compared with a conventional JPEG2000 encoder.