Prediction based on Boolean, FIR-Boolean hybrid and stack filters for lossless image coding

This paper proposes the use of mean absolute error (MAE) optimal Boolean and stack filters for sequential prediction in lossless grey-level image coding. FIR-Boolean hybrid filters are introduced as variations of Boolean filter structure and shown to be very effective for the prediction task. Different instances of optimal filtering are considered for realizing the prediction stage. First, the use of global-optimal predictors is analyzed, when the global MAE-optimal filter is used as a predictor. Then more refined structures, block-optimal and adaptive-size-block-optimal are considered, where predictors are adapted to local characteristics. These structures prove most suitable when small prediction masks are used. Extensive simulations are carried out for analyzing and comparing the performance of the newly introduced predictors and various other sequential predictors.