Discrete cosine transform optimization in image compression based on genetic algorithm

Based on the basic principles and characteristics of discrete cosine transform (DCT), we propose a DCT optimization method using genetic algorithm in order to improve the efficiency of image compression. First, we calculate the error between the reconstructed image and its original one. Then, in order to optimize DCT transform matrix coefficients, we use genetic algorithm to find optimal solution by minimizing the mean square error. Finally, we use the optimized transform kernel to process images. Experimental results indicate that the PSNR of the reconstructed images has been improved using the proposed optimization DCT in both cases of image block 4×4 and 8×8.