Fast VQ encoding by an efficient kick-out condition

A new fast approach to the nearest codeword search using a single kick-out condition is proposed. The nearest codeword found by the proposed approach is identical to the one Found by the full search, although the processing t ime is much shorter. The principle is to bypass those codewords which satis fy the proposed kick-out condition without the actual (and time-consuming) computation of the distortions from the bypassed codewords to the query vec tor. Due to the efficiency and simplicity of the proposed condition, a cons iderable saving of the central processing unit time needed to encode a data set (using a given codebook) can be achieved. Moreover, the memory require ment is low. Comparisons with some recent works are included to show these two benefits.