Fully scalable multiple description image coding

In this paper a novel scheme that incorporates both quality and resolution scalability within the multiple description coding (MDC) framework is presented. Different resolution descriptions are created by using several multiple description scalar quantizers (MDSQ) concept in different wavelet decomposition levels and the quality scalability is achieved in each description by successive refinement of the side quantizers to obtain enhancement layers. We propose the criteria to select different resolution descriptions from several MDSQs and the relationship between the refinement factor of each side quantizer of MDSQ and the number of diagonals filled in the MDSQ index assignment matrix. Rate distortion performances of the fully scalable image coding at different resolution and quality are presented. The Robustness of the proposed scheme is evaluated for the packet erasure channel and compared with scalable single description image coding.