Compact image coding from edges with wavelets

A second generation image coding algorithm based on multiscale edges is described. Edges are detected from the local maxima of the image wavelet transform. The original image can be reconstructed from the corresponding multiscale edge map. For coding purposes, the edges that are important for the image visualization are selected, and an efficient encoding of the corresponding data is described. High compression ratio can be obtained for images where the texture information is not important. Examples with compression ratios of around 30 are given