Multiple description image coding method based on balanced multiwavelet transformation

A new MD (multiple description) video coding method, which is based on balanced multiwavelet image transformations, is proposed here. First, we apply balanced multiwavelet transformation to the image; then, corresponding components of each sub-band are gathered together, so that we can decompose the image into 4 MDs. A practical MD coding theme must satisfy two requirements. First, each description should carry the same amount of information. Secondly, there must be dependence between each description. Among commonly used multiwavelets, we find that only balanced multiwavelets can satisfy these two requirements. Furthermore, based on the feature of CARDBAL2 multiwavelet and strict mathematical deductions, we also find a way to estimate the lost descriptions. The experimental results presented in this paper show that, even when 75% of the data of the image are lost, we can still get a good-quality recovered image, with a PSNR value of nearly 30dB.