Video compression quality metrics correlation with aided target recognition (ATR) applications

Tactical battlefield surveillance systems will require the transmission of compressed video to utilize the limited communication bandwidth and data ca pacity of these systems. Any compression techniques used wilt result in som e loss of information. If is important to assess the quality of the output video to determine its performance in aided target recognition applications . The traditional rate of distortion formula is shown by Mallet [S. Mallet, "Understanding wavelet image compression," Proc. SPIE Wavelet Apps. IV 307 8, 74-93 (April 1997); "A theory for multiresolution signal decomposition: The wavelet representation," IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 11, 67 4-693 (1989)] to be inappropriate for wavelet compression in high compressi on ratios. The reason is that the histogram changes from atl gray scale to a concentration singularity near the origin of very low bit rate such that the discrete approximation of the density function of the histogram is no l onger valid. Thus we cannot theoretically predict the distortion due to wav elet compression. Therefore we conduct an empirical investigation to evalua te the spatial and temporal effects of lossy wavelet compression and recons truction on tactical infrared video. We quantify localized peak signal-to-n oise ratio and feature persistence measure measurements and objective asses sment techniques developed by the institute for Telecommunication Sciences, U.S. Department of commerce to assess video impairment based on quality me asurements. We therefore measure video degradation rather than absolute vid eo quality which is difficult to quantify. (C) 1998 SPIE and IS&T. [51017-9 909(98)00704-1].