Hierarchical bilevel image compression based on cutset sampling

We propose a hierarchical lossy bilevel image compression method that relies on adaptive cutset sampling (along lines of a rectangular grid with variable block size) and Markov Random Field based reconstruction. It is an efficient encoding scheme that preserves image structure by using a coarser grid in smooth areas of the image and a finer grid in areas with more detail. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method performs as well as or better than the fixed-grid approach, and outperforms other lossy bilevel compression methods in its rate-distortion performance.