Super-Resolution image construction has gained increased importance recently. This is due to the demand for resolution enhancement for many imaging applications, as it is much efficient to capture images in a low resolution environment. The Bspline mathematical functions have long been utilized for signal representation. However they have been just recently been used for signal interpolation and zooming. This is due to the fact that they are flexible and provide the best cost/quality trade off relationship. In this paper we present a super-resolution image construction algorithm, where the high frequencies and edges of the high resolution constructed image are solely based on the Bspline signal representation. Mathematical explanation and derivation for the proposed Bspline prediction is analyzed. Several texture images from the Vistex database has been used to test the proposed technique. Extensive simulation results, that have been carried out with the proposed approach on different classes of images and demonstrated its usefulness, are proposed.

The Natural Preserve Transform (NPT) has been presented as a tool for fuzzy logic watermarking. This paper describes a new image watermarking technique based on Naturalness Preserving Transform (NPT). The proposed watermarking scheme uses NPT to encode a gray scale watermarking logo image or text, into a host image at any location. This paper presents efficient non-blind and quasi-blind watermark extraction techniques. In the quasi blind case, the extraction algorithm requires only very few information about the original image that is already conveyed by the watermarked image. Moreover, the proposed scheme does not introduce visual quality degradation into the host image. The performance and robustness of the proposed technique are tested by applying common image-processing operations such as cropping, noise degradation, and image compression. A quantitative measure is proposed to objectify performance; under this measure, the proposed technique outperforms most of the recent techniques in most cases.

The Natural Preserve Transform (NPT) has been presented as a tool for fuzzy logic watermarking. This paper describes a new image watermarking technique based on Naturalness Preserving Transform (NPT). The proposed watermarking scheme uses NPT to encode a gray scale watermarking logo image or text, into a host image at any location. This paper presents efficient non-blind and quasi-blind watermark extraction techniques. In the quasi blind case, the extraction algorithm requires only very few information about the original image that is already conveyed by the watermarked image. Moreover, the proposed scheme does not introduce visual quality degradation into the host image. The performance and robustness of the proposed technique are tested by applying common image-processing operations such as cropping, noise degradation, and image compression. A quantitative measure is proposed to objectify performance; under this measure, the proposed technique outperforms most of the recent techniques in most cases.

The Natural Preserve Transform (NPT) has been presented as a tool for fuzzy logic watermarking. This paper describes a new image watermarking technique based on Naturalness Preserving Transform (NPT). The proposed watermarking scheme uses NPT to encode a gray scale watermarking logo image or text, into a host image at any location. This paper presents efficient non-blind and quasi-blind watermark extraction techniques. In the quasi blind case, the extraction algorithm requires only very few information about the original image that is already conveyed by the watermarked image. Moreover, the proposed scheme does not introduce visual quality degradation into the host image. The performance and robustness of the proposed technique are tested by applying common image-processing operations such as cropping, noise degradation, and image compression. A quantitative measure is proposed to objectify performance; under this measure, the proposed technique outperforms most of the recent techniques in most cases. We also implemented the proposed technique on a hardware platform, digital signal processor (DSK 6713). Simulation and implementation results are illustrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed technique.

The B-spline mathematical functions have long been utilized for signal representation, zooming and interpolation. However they have not been investigated for different image coding applications. In spite of the fact that B-splines are a semi-orthogonal basis (not full orthogonal) they still can be utilized for redundancy removal and decorrelation maximization prior to any compression scheme. This is due to their distinctive feature of preserving energy in low frequencies. In this paper we propose a novel technique for preprocessing signals/images prior to the decomposition stage in different image coders based on the B-spline decomposition. Mathematical explanation and derivation for the proposed B-spline decomposition basis is presented and analyzed. We derive our theoretic/mathematical justification, through some Eigen analysis calculations, for the enhancement in compression performance achieved with our B-spline based compression approach. We also present a straightforward approach for calculating the B-spline basis in a fast and efficient manner. Extensive simulations have been carried out on the well known SPIHT image coder with and without the proposed correlation removal methodology. Simulation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique are presented.

In this paper, efficient one-dimensional (1-D) fast integer transform algorithm of the DCT matrix for the H.265 standard is proposed. Based on the symmetric property of the integer transform matrix and the matrix operations, along with using the dyadic symmetry modification on the standard matrix, the efficient fast 1-D integer transform algorithm is developed. Therefore, the computational complexities of the proposed fast integer transform are smaller than those of the direct method. In addition to computational complexity reduction the proposed algorithms provides transformation quality improvement. With lower complexity and better transformation quality, the proposed fast algorithm is suitable to accelerate the quality-demanding video coding computations

In this paper, we propose a VC-1 zero block detection method, for very low bit-rate applications that skip the transform operation for detected zero blocks. The proposed method works during the process of motion search for inter frame coding, by comparing the SAD of each residual block to two thresholds based on a value related to the QP, resulting in a two-option method for each threshold; where the 1st is for preserving quality, and the 2nd is for saving time. Normally VC-1 skips the quantization operation for detected zero blocks. In addition when a MB (macro-block) is detected as a zero MB, meaning that all 6 blocks in a MB are zeros; VC-1 signals this MB as a skipped MB, where it’s treated differently and many processes are skipped on the MB layer. For that reason, the proposed method is enhanced again with skipping the transform operation, but for MBs with five zero blocks. Meaning that a 6th non-zero block in the MB will be a zero block, and the whole MB will then be signaled as a skipped MB. Loosing the information of the non-zero block, adds quality degradation, but compression takes place more effectively. Among the four sequences tested the Hall showed the best results with up to 73.55%, 78.00%, and 88.91% of the original file size, encoding, and decoding times respectively. On the other hand, the quality degraded, as was expected, with a maximum average PSNR by 5.3 dB for the Hall sequence and 3.4 dB in the Foreman sequence.

In this paper we proposed a novel technique for watermarking facial images into different background images in an invisible manner. This facial image can be extracted blindly from the watermarked image without any prior knowledge about the background image (blindly). More over the proposed technique can still deliver an extracted face image even in the presence of noise, compression or cropping of the watermarked image, but with some visual quality degradation. This embedding/extraction methodology is fake-free and robust against compression, noise and cropping attacks. The proposed approach consists of an insertion part and an extraction part. The proposed approach is based upon the natural preserve transform technique that achieves a balance between energy concentration and energy distribution; hence it is best used for watermarking images. Extensive simulation results on several facial and background images, that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique, are illustrated in comparison with current watermarking methods in the literature.

The detection of JPEG prior compression has become an essential task in the detection of forgery in image forensics. In this paper we propose a novel DCT implementation technique that can be utilized in the detection of any hacking or tampering of JPEG/DCT compressed images. The proposed approach is based upon recent literature ideas of recompressing JPEG image blocks and detecting if this block has been compressed before or not and how many times. In this paper we proposed a DCT implementation that has a onetime signature on processed coefficients or pixels and can be used as a tool to detect if this block has been compressed before using the proposed implementation or not. Any further processing can be easily detected and identified. The proposed DCT transformation is nonorthogonal and results in a minor amount of error due to this nonorthogonality, however it maintains an excellent tradeoff between compression performance, and transform error. Illustrative examples on several processed images are presented with complexity analysis.

In this paper we propose an interactive super resolution coding technique to enhance user’s visualization of received low resolution (LR) images. The proposed technique hides/embeds high frequencies and edges in the LR image, and constructs a high resolution (HR) image upon a user click. The proposed technique is suitable for many applications (eg. digital libraries) that display images and videos to the user in small sizes, and should be capable of reconstructing a HR version of the image or video upon a click on the LR version. The proposed approach consists of an insertion part and an extraction part. In the insertion part (that could be treated as an acquisition algorithm), high frequency components of the sensed image are embedded/inserted among the content of the finally delivered LR image in an invisible manner. The resulting sensed image is a regular low resolution image, however when performing the extraction part on it, a HR image is constructed without any side information in a blind, fast, robust and effective manner. The proposed approach has been tested on several images and video sequences against noise and compression, and gave very competitive results with current literature methods.