Joint source/channel coding for multiple images

A joint source/channel coding algorithm is proposed for the transmission of multiple image sources over memoryless channels. The proposed algorithm uses a quality scalable image coder to allocate a limited bit budget optimally among all the sources to achieve the optimal overall distortion reduction for the multiple reconstructed images. In addition to the conventional unequal error protection gain, it provides channel multiplexing gain which can be much more significant. Furthermore, an extended scheme is proposed to provide flexibility between the optimization performance and complexity.