Content-Driven Progressive Transmission of Grey-Scale Images

A lossless progressive transmission method for grey-scale images which concentrates early transmission efforts on areas of greater image information content is described. The receiver does not have a priori knowledge of which image areas are to receive preferential treatment, and the preferential level of resolution is the pixel. The method makes use of simultaneous geometric and information content decompositions. The method is computationally simple with a complexity which grows linearly with the number of pixels. Compression achieved approaches that obtained by nonprogressive lossless methods, and is approximately the same as for homogeneous progressive lossless methods. Extensions of the method for progressive transmission with limited distortion and greater compression are also discussed.