Dynamic finite-state vector quantization of digital images

A vector quantization (VQ) scheme with finite memory called dynamic finite-state vector quantization (DFSVQ) is presented. The encoder consists of a large codebook, so called super-codebook, where for each input vector a fixed number of its codevectors are chosen to generate a much smaller codebook (sub-codebook). This sub-codebook represents the best matching codevectors that could be found in the super-codebook for encoding the current input vector. The choice for the codevectors in the sub-codebook is based on the information obtained from the previously encoded blocks where directional conditional block probability (histogram) matrices are used in the selection of the codevectors. The index of the best matching codevector in the sub-codebook is transmitted to the receiver. An adaptive DFSVQ scheme is also proposed in which, when encoding an input vector, first the sub-codebook is searched for a matching codevector to satisfy a pre-specified waveform distortion. If such a codevector is not found in tile current sub-codebook then the whole super-codebook is checked for a better match. If a better match is found then a signaling flag along with the corresponding index of the codevector is transmitted to the receiver. Both the DFSVQ encoder and its adaptive version are implemented. Experimental results for several monochrome images with a super-codebook size of 256 or 512 and different sub-codebook sizes are presented