Compressive quantization of images

Digital compression of images, which is widely used to decrease the energy, time, and memory required for transmission and storage of video information, does not reduce the burden imposed on the analog-to-digital converters (A/Ds) employed for image quantization. Meanwhile this quantization is one of the most challenging problems in the design of large image sensors. Image quantization technique discussed in this paper eases the burden imposed on the A/Ds and provides other benefits by performing image compression in the mixed-signal domain. The technique exploits specific properties of images including stochastic dependence among pixels within frames and corresponding pixels of successive frames. The ways of the compressive quantization realization and utilization in large image sensors and in miniature video cameras are investigated. The advantages of this technique are analyzed and estimated. It is proven that the use of compressive quantization in image sensors is more effective and efficient than the use of compressive sampling.