Lossless compact histogram representation for multi-component images: application to histogram equalization

The problem of histogram representation is addressed. In the case of multi-component images, this problem is not trivial: the theoretical "naive" required memory space goes exponentially beyond todays technical capacities. To overcome this problem, we present a lossless compact representation of vector histograms. It is based on the use of a space filling curve to index the data space. The application of this representation to vector histogram equalization is then considered.