Generalized 2-D cyclic patterns for secret watermark generation

This paper describes a new method for generating 2-D watermarks with good synchronizability and secrecy properties. The aim of the work is primarily to develop a watermarking scheme that efficiently and securely deals with cropping and object segmentation. It differs from other existing schemes by its innovative pattern generation algorithm. On the basis of a 1-D sequence, we propose an original method to generate a redundant 2-D pattern with cyclic properties depending on a secret key. The cyclic property facilitates the synchronization for the detection of the watermark when the reference marks are lost. Possible applications fields of this technique are object oriented scene authentication as well as classical intellectual property rights issues.