An Adjustable and Reversible Data Hiding Method Based on Multiple-base Notational System without Location Map

The reversible image hiding method is one data hiding technique for pro- tecting secret data or copyright. The reversible image hiding method can completely reconstruct the cover image from the stego-image after the embedded secret data are com- pletely extracted. However, many proposed reversible image hiding methods require a location map to restore the cover images. Although the location map can be compressed by a lossless compression algorithm, it will decrease the embedding capacity and increase the computational cost. This paper presents a new type of adjustment reversible image hiding method without a location map. The proposed method applies the multiple-base notational system to embed the secret data into a cover image with minimal distortion and provides several advantages: (1) the location map is not required; (2) the embed- ding capacity can be adjusted according to the user's practical applications; (3) a high embedding capacity with pleasing visual image quality, especially the smooth images, is achieved. Furthermore, the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a higher embedding capacity and satisfactory visual image quality.