A NEW SPLITTING STRATEGY FOR ADAPTIVE TRANSFORM CODING

In this short communication, a new splitting strategy for variable blo ck-size image coding based on edge information is presented, which all ows one to reduce the number of blocks to be encoded, while maintainin g an in-depth split in edge areas. The proposed approach has been appl ied to a standard transform coding algorithm, and results have been co mpared with those obtained by a classical splitting structure. Tests s howed a notable increase in the compression factor, under the same SNR conditions. Reconstructed images are affected by the blocking effect to a smaller extent, as the problem of generating a large number of sm all blocks in the uniform areas surrounding an edge can be overcome by the new splitting strategy.