A SPIHT-like image coder based on the contourlet transform

The contourlet transform was recently proposed to overcome the limited ability of wavelet to represent image edges and discontinuities. Besides retaining the desirable characteristics of wavelet transform, such as multiresolution and localization, it has two additional important features: directionality and anisotropy. In this work we propose a new image coding technique based on an hybrid contourlet-wavelet decomposition. The encoder builds upon the well-known SPIHT algorithm, which is suitably modified to take into account the new hierarchical structure of the transform coefficients and the correlation between them. Both numerical results and visual quality confirm the potential of this approach, especially for images with high texture content.