The LiftLT: fast-lapped transforms via lifting steps

This paper introduces a class of multiband linear phase-lapped biorthogonal transforms with fast, VLSI-friendly implementations via lifting steps called the LiftLT. The transform is based on a lattice structure that robustly enforces both linear phase and perfect reconstruction properties. The lattice coefficients are parameterized as a series of lifting steps, providing fast, efficient, in-place computation of the transform coefficients. The new transform is designed for applications in image and video coding. Compared to the popular 8/spl times/8 DCT, the 8/spl times/16 LiftLT only requires one more multiplication, 22 more additions, and six more shifting operations. However, image coding examples show that the LiftLT is far superior to the DCT in both objective and subjective coding performance. Thanks to properly designed overlapping basis functions, the LiftLT can completely eliminate annoying blocking artifacts. In fact, the novel LT´s coding performance consistently surpasses that of the much more complex 9/7-tap biorthogonal wavelet with floating-point coefficients. More importantly, the transform´s block-based nature facilitates one-pass sequential block coding, region-of-interest coding/decoding, and parallel processing.