EMBEDDED MULTILEVEL ERROR DIFFUSION

We present an algorithm for image browsing systems that embeds the out put of binary Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion, or a low bit-depth gray -scale or color error diffused image into higher bit-depth gray-scale or color error diffused images. The benefits of this algorithm are tha t a low bit-depth halftoned image can be directly obtained from a high er bit-depth halftone for printing or progressive transmission simply by masking one or more bits off of the higher bit-depth image, The emb edding can be done in anp bits of the output, although the most signif icant or the least significant bits are most convenient, Due to constr aints on the palette introduced by embedding image quality for the hig her bit-depth halftone mag be reduced, To preserve image quality, we p resent algorithms for color palette organization, or binary index assi gnment, to be used as a preprocessing step to the embedding algorithm.