Highly scalable and perceptually tuned embedded subband/wavelet image coding

Former research on perceptual image coding was mainly developed in the traditional sequential coding framework, where the codestream is neither rate nor resolution scalable. In this paper, our earlier embedded subband/wavelet image coding algorithm EZBC is further developed for highly scalable image coding applications. Special attention is given to perceptual image coding under varying viewing/display conditions --- a common situation in typical scalable coding application environments. Unlike the conventional perceptual image coding approach, all the perceptually coded images (individually targeted at particular viewing conditions) are decoded from a single compressed bitstream file. The experimental results show the bitrate savings by the proposed algorithm are significant, particularly for coding of high-definition (HD) images.