Embedding intensity image into a binary hologram with strong noise resistant capability

Abstract A digital hologram can be employed as a host image for image watermarking applications to protect information security. Past research demonstrates that a gray level intensity image can be embedded into a binary Fresnel hologram by error diffusion method or bit truncation coding method. However, the fidelity of the retrieved watermark image from binary hologram is generally not satisfactory, especially when the binary hologram is contaminated with noise. To address this problem, we propose a JPEG–BCH encoding method in this paper. First, we employ the JPEG standard to compress the intensity image into a binary bit stream. Next, we encode the binary bit stream with BCH code to obtain error correction capability. Finally, the JPEG–BCH code is embedded into the binary hologram. By this way, the intensity image can be retrieved with high fidelity by a BCH–JPEG decoder even if the binary hologram suffers from serious noise contamination. Numerical simulation results show that the image quality of retrieved intensity image with our proposed method is superior to the state-of-the-art work reported.