2008 IEEE Conference on Soft Computing in Industrial Applications (SMCia/08), June 25-27, 2008, Muroran, JAPAN
Image compression Using Wavelet Transform and Vector
Quantization with Variable block Size
Osamu Yamanaka, Student Member, IEEE, Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, Junji Maeda, Member, IEEE,
and Yukinori Suzuki, Member, IEEE
Abstract— We introduced discrete wavelet transform (DWT)
to vector quantization (VQ) for image compression. DWT is
multi-resolution analysis, and a signal energy concentrates to
specific DWT coefficients. This characteristics is useful for
image compression. DWT coefficients are compressed using
VQ with variable block size. To perform effective compression,
blocks are merged by the algorithm proposed in this paper.
Results of computational experiments show that our algorithm
is effective compared with the performance of the previous
proposed algorithm.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The use of low cost personal computer, Internet, and
mobile phones has been all over the world. People can now
communicate with each other beyond physical distances.
The new communication tools are also changing business
approaches and our way of life. New technologies have
been developed in response to demands for data transmission
bandwidth and storage space. However, these demands con-
tinues to outstrip the capacity of existing technologies. To
use communication channels effectively, data compression
technologies are essential [1], [2].
Multimedia data (e.g., images, videos, voices, music, etc.)
are streaming through communication channels. Since im-
ages and videos require large bandwidth and storage capacity,
technologies for compression of these data are essential
to use communication channels effectively. We have been
studying technologies to compress images. The purpose of
image compression technology is to reduce the amount of
data and to achieve low bit rate digital representation without
perceptual loss of image quality. JPEG (Joint Photographic
Expert Group) has recently been widely used for image com-
pression. We are developing technologies to compress images
based on vector quantization (VQ) for the following reasons.
Although a VQ requires a large amount of computational cost
Osamu Yamanaka is with the Department of Computer Science &
Systems Engineering, Muroran Institute of Technology, 27-1, Mizumoto-
cho, Muroran 050-8585, Japan (phone: +81-143-46-5435; fax: +81-143-46-
5430; email: osamu@athena.csse.muroran-it.ac.jp).
Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi is with the Department of Computer Science &
Systems Engineering, Muroran Institute of Technology, 27-1, Mizumoto-
cho, Muroran 050-8585, Japan (phone: +81-143-46-5435; fax: +81-143-46-
5430; email: tsuyoshi@athena.csse.muroran-it.ac.jp).
Kazuya Sasazaki is with the Department of Computer Science & Sys-
tems Engineering, Muroran Institute of Technology, 27-1, Mizumoto-cho,
Muroran 050-8585, Japan (email: sasazaki@athena.csse.muroran-it.ac.jp).
Junji Maeda is with the Department of Computer Science & Systems En-
gineering, Muroran Institute of Technology, 27-1, Mizumoto-cho, Muroran
050-8585, Japan (email: junji@csse.muroran-it.ac.jp).
Yukinori Suzuki is with the Department of Computer Science & Sys-
tems Engineering, Muroran Institute of Technology, 27-1, Mizumoto-cho,
Muroran 050-8585, Japan (email: yuki@csse.muroran-it.ac.jp).
978-1-4244-3782-5/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE - 359 -
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to construct a code book (CB), decoding requires only lookup
from the CB once a CB has been constructed. Therefore,
computational cost for decoding is remarkably smaller than
that needed to construct a CB. Furthermore, image quality
by a VQ is higher than that of JPEG in the region of high
compression ratio. These facts are attractive points for image
compression and applications [3].
Wavelet transform (WT) is a widely used image compres-
sion technique. In JPEG 2000, discrete WT is used as a core
technology to compress still images. WT is multi-resolution
analysis and it decomposes images into wavelet coefficients
and scaling function. In WT, a signal energy concentrates
to specific wavelet coefficients. This characteristics is useful
for compressing images. In this paper, we describe decom-
position of images using discrete wavelet transform (DWT)
and encode images using VQ with variable block size. To
compress an image effectively, we propose a block merging
algorithm. The rest of paper is organized as follows. A brief
introduction of DWT is given in section 2. In section 3,
VQ with variable block size is described . A block merging
algorithm is presented in section 4. Results of computational
experiments to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed
method are presented in section 5. Finally, conclusions are
given in section 6.
II. D ISCRETE WAVELET T RANSFORM
In this section, we briefly review discrete wavelet trans-
form (DWT). Fourier transform (FT) computes an inner
product between a signal f (t) and an integral kernel that
is composed by sine and cosine waves. On the other hand,
wavelet transform computes an inner product between a
signal f (t) and wavelets. In FT, we detect similarity between
a given signal f (t) and sine wave or cosine wave. These
sine and cosine waves are infinite functions. If a signal exists
locally in the time axis, the signal f (t) may not be similar to
the sine or cosine wave. We use a wavelet that exists locally
in the time axis, and it can therefore detect a function f (t)
existing locally in the time axis. This is a basic idea for using
a wavelet [2], [4].
Wavelet transform (WT) is defined by an inner product
between a wavelet function and a signal as
  ∗
1 t−b
(Wψ f )(b, a) = √ f (t)ψ dt, (1)
a a
R
where ψa,b (t) is a wavelet function and a, b ∈ R(a > 0) are
parameters for scale and translation, respectively [4]. This
 continuous wavelet function is digitized by binary partition
for a and b such as a = 2j ,and b = 2j k, respectively. Then
a discrete wavelet function is obtained:
j  
ψj,k (t) = 2− 2 ψ 2−j t − k . (2)
Some class of ψa,b (t) satisfies orthogonality for parameters
a and b. If ψa,b (t) satisfies orthogonality, a signal f (t) can
be expanded with a wavelet series such as
  (j)
f (t) = wk ψj,k (t), (3)
j k
Fig. 1. Image of Lenna and its DWT with j = 2.
(j)
where wk is a wavelet coefficient.
Furthermore, a signal is represented by a linear combina- (0)
tion of scaling functions. An approximated signal f0 (t) of a we obtain sk , then scaling and wavelet coefficients can be
signal f (t) is generated using a scaling function computed using the two scale relations (8) and (9).
 (j)

f0 (t) = sk ϕ(t − k), (4) sk = p∗n−2k sn(j−1) . (12)
k n

(j)

∗
where ϕ(t) is a scaling function such that wk = qn−2k sn(j−1) . (13)
 n
1(0 ≤ t < 1)
ϕ(t) = (5) Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) for two-dimensional
0(otherwise).
data f (m, n) is computed as well as for f (n). We first carried
In this case, multiresolution level j = 0 is the highest level. out DWT in the direction of the horizontal axis and then
This continuous function is digitized by binary partition carried out DWT in the direction of the vertical axis for the
j   data obtained by horizontal transform. Fig. 1 shows a Lenna
ϕj,k (t) = 2− 2 ϕ 2−j t − k . (6)
image and its DWT with level j = 2.
This scaling function also satisfies orthogonality for both
translation and scaling. The jth level approximated function, III. VARIABLE B LOCK S IZE FOR V ECTOR
fj (t), is represented using ϕj,k (t). Q UANTIZATION
 (j) Vector quantization (VQ) consists of an encoder, a code
fj (t) = sk ϕj,k (t), (7) book CB) and a decoder as shown in Fig. 2. A CB first has
k
to be designed for a VQ. A sufficient number of training
(j) images are prepared and then each image is partitioned into
where sk is a scaling coefficient. Here, we mention about
two scaling relations: rectangular blocks. These rectangular blocks form training
 vectors with fixed size. The sizes of vectors are usually
ϕj,k (t) = pn−2k ϕj−1,n (t), (8) 2 × 2, 4 × 4, 8 × 8, etc. The training vectors are grouped
k into clusters on the basis of an optimality criterion, and then
where sequence pn connects the jth level scaling function cluster centers provide the code vectors (CVs) of the CB.
and the j − 1th level of it. For the wavelet function ψj,k (t), Fig. 2 shows a conceptual diagram for encoding an image
there is the following relation: using a CB. A block of pixels is extracted from an image
 as the input vector. Encoding involves choosing the CV that
ψj,k (t) = qn−2k ϕj−1,n (t), (9) is closest to the input vector from the CB. An index of the
n
CV is sent to the decoder through a communication cannel.
where qn also connects the jth level wavelet and the j − 1th The decoder chooses the CV corresponding to the receiving
level of it. index. A VQ of an image is carried out by repeating the
We consider to compute wavelet coefficients from a dis- above process. In a VQ, the larger the size of CVs in a
crete sequence. We represent a sampled sequence as f (n). CB is, the lower is the compression rate of the encoded
As shown in (4), a continuous signal f (t) is expanded as image. On the other hand, the smaller the size of CVs in
 (0) a CB is, the higher is the quality of the encoded image. It
f (t)  f0 (t) = sk ϕ(t − k). (10) is a trade-off between compression rate and quality of the
k
encoded image. Vaisey and Gersho proposed variable block
 +∞
(0) size segmentation, in which a top-down quadtree (QT) was
sk = f (t)ϕ0,k (t)∗ dt. (11) employed to divided an image into variable blocks size. A
−∞
QT decomposition is based on homogeneity of local regions
(0)
In (10), sk cannot be computed, Mallet therefore proposed of an image. They obtained high quality-image reprodunction
(0)
that sampled sequence f (n) can be considered as sk . If at rates between 0.25 and 0.7 bits/pixel (bpp). Overall, their

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 Fig. 3. Image ”airplane” and its LFD map. The LFD values are mapped
from the range of 2.0 - 3.0 to the range of 0 - 255. The bright level in the
LFD map is proportional to LFD values.
Fig. 2. Conceptual diagram of vector quantization.

of discriminant analysis [13]. We divide the histogram of

algorithm is quite complex. Since their study, a number LFDs into F clusters.
of researchers have studied a VQ with variable block size
using QT decomposition [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. However, it 2.0 ≤ k1 < k2 · · · kF −1 < 3.0 (17)
is natural to assume that the complexity of local regions of The number of wavelet coefficients showing LFD level kj is
an image is more essential than the homegeneity of local denoted by ni , and the total number of wavelet coefficients
regions in constructing variable block size segmentation. is N .
According to the above idea, we proposed a VQ of an
F

image with variable block size using local fractal dimensions
pi = ni /N (i ∈ Sj , pi ≥ 0, pi = 1). (18)
(LFDs) [10]. We usually pay attention to complex regions
i=1
rather than homogeneous regions, and we consider complex
regions to be perceptually essential for image compression. The histogram of the LFDs is divided into F classes.
A fractal is a phenomena which has fundamental char- Cj for Sj = [kj−1 , . . . , kj ](j = 1, . . . , F ), (19)
acteristics of invariance under different scales. A fractal is
a geometrical pattern consisting of self-similar patterns. It where k0 = 2.0 and kF = 3.0. The probabilities of class
also possesses infinite details and is generally self-similar occurrence and class mean level, respectively, are given as

and independent of scale [11]. Fractal dimension is a quan- ωj = Pr(Cj ) = pi = ω(kj ) − ω(kj−1 ), (20)
titative measure of how densely a fractal occupies a space. i∈Sj
Novianto et al. developed a method for estimating a local
  ipi μ(kj ) − μ(kj−1 )
fractal dimension (LFD) of images [12]. The method is an μj = i Pr(i|Cj ) = = , (21)
optimization of a blanket method and its appropriateness was ωj ω(kj ) − ω(kj−1 )
i∈Sj i∈Sj
confirmed experimentally. A blanket method covers an image
kj
surface g(i, j) with a blanket by the top ue and bottom be where ω(kj ) = i=1 pi , ω(0) and μ(0) = 0. The goodness
surfaces [12]. of the threshold is determined so as to maximize the follow-
 ing objective function:
uε (i, j) = max uε−1 (i, j) + 1, max uε−1 (m, n) , F
|(m,n)−(i,j)|≤1 
2

(14) σB (k1 , ..., kD−1 ) = ωj (μj − μT )2 , (22)
j=1
bε (i, j) = min bε−1 (i, j) − 1, min bε−1 (m, n) ,
|(m,n)−(i,j)|≤1
F
(15) where μT = i=1 ipi . Fig. 4 show a Lenna image (top left),
where g(i, j) = u0 (i, j) = b0 (i, j). If ε is the number of its two level WT (top right), LFD map of wavelet coefficients
blankets, the area of blanket A(ε) is computed by (bottom left), and division of the LFD image with variable

block size (bottom right).
(uε (i, j) − bε (u, j))
i,j IV. I MAGE S EGMENTATION
A(ε) = . (16)
2ε Compression rate of decode image is computed by
The FD value, D, is computed by A(ε) = F ε2−D . F is n·c
a constant. The FD value can be estimated from the linear bpp = , (23)
N
fit of log A(ε) against log ε with the blanket’s scale ranging
where n is the number of indexes of an encoded image, c
from 1 to ε, and the slope should be equal to 2 − D. Fig. 3
is the number of bits to represent indexes of CVs, and N is
shows an image of Airplane and its LFD map.
the number of pixels of an original image. c is computed by
The training image is divided into blocks of L1 , L2 , ..., LF
in sizes using LFDs. The division is carried out by a method c = log2 C , (24)

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 is given as

(Y − Yi )2 + (Cb − Cbi )2 + (Cr − Cri )2
di =  , (28)
Y 2 + Cb2 + Cr2
where i = 1, 2, ..., 8. Maximum distance to its neighbor for
each pixel is
8
dmax = max (di ) . (29)
i=1

The seed pixel candidate must satisfy the following two

Fig. 4. The four images are Lenna image (top left), its two level WT (top
right), LFD map of wavelet coefficients (bottom left), and division of the
LFD map with variable block size (bottom right).
conditions.
(1) It is necessary to have similarity higher than a threshold
value that is determined by Otsu discriminant analysis.
(2) It is necessary to have the maximum relative Euclidean
distance to its neighbors.
To apply this algorithm to the image divided into variable
block size, we consider a block of pixels in an image instead
of each pixel. The blocks are merged by an algorithm based
on the region growing algorithm. We specify neighboring
blocks as follows. We select one block indexed i. If there are
three blocks of the same in size on the right side (indexed
i + 1), lower side (indexed i + 2), and opposite side (indexed
i+3) to block i, these three blocks are neighboring blocks of
block indexed i. For these neighboring blocks, we compute
the standard deviation.
where C is the number of CVs in the CB and  means  i+4 BS
1    2
raising the decimal to the nearest whole number. As shown σblock =
xlj − x̄j , (30)
in (23), compression rate is specified as n, c, and N . c is 4 j=1 l=i
predetermined by the number of CVs in the CB. N is also
predetermined by the input image. Therefore, to improve where BS is block size, xlj
is jth pixel in block l. x̄j is mean
compression rate, we have to reduce n. For VQ, we divide the value of the jth pixel in the block i and it is computed as
i+4
image into blocks, being n is equal to the number of blocks. 1 l
We reduce n using a technique of image segmentation, which x̄j = xj . (31)
4
is based on the method of seed region growing proposed by l=i
Shih and Cheng [14]. For the next step, the relative Euclidean distance of block i
The technique proposed by Shih and Cheng [14] consists to its neighboring blocks is computed as
of two parts: automatic seed selection and a region growing 

 i
BS 2  2  2
algorithm to segment color image. For automatic seed se- Yj − Yjl + Cbij − Cblj + Crij − Crl j
lection, similarity of a pixel to its neighbors is computed j=1
dblock l =  ,
as follows. The standard deviation of Y, Cb, Cr (color

BS  2  2  2
components) in 3 × 3 window in size is Yji + Cbij + Crij
j=1

 9 (32)
1 
σx = (xi − x̄)2 , (25) where Yji stand for the j pixel of the Y component of the
9 i=1 block that has its three neighboring blocks, l = i+1, i+2, i+
3. Yjl stand for the jth pixel value of lth neighboring block.
1

9 Maximum distance to its neighboring blocks is computed as

where x̄ is the mean value given by x̄ = 9 xi . The total
i=1
standard deviation for all color components is dblock max = max (dblock l ) . (33)
l

σ = σY + σCb + σr .
σ is normalized between [0, 1], which is represented by σN .
Then, similarity of a pixel to its neighbors is defined as
H = 1 − σN .
The relative Euclidean distances of a pixel to its neighbors
(26) We specify the block as a seed block when the block
satisfies conditions (1) and (2) stated above. To confirm
conditions (1) and (2), similarity and maximum distance are
also employed. Since there is high similarity between the
seed block and its neighboring blocks, we merge these four
(27) blocks as a new block. This merging process is applied to
all blocks comprising the image. For VQ, the merged blocks
are encoded by a CB.

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 TABLE I
C OMPARISON OF THE METHODS , VQ WITH VARIABLE BLOCK SIZE
PROPOSED PREVIOUSLY AND VQ WITH VARIABLE BLOCK SIZE USING A
MERGING ALGORITHM . DATA ARE FOR Y COLOR COMPONENT.

Image Method the number of pixels in the block PSNR bpp

2×2 4×4 8×8
Lenna previous 5188 1619 295 29.161 2.601318
proposed 1704 2002 353 29.0884 2.229858
Airplane previous 5260 1433 337 25.4878 2.592529
proposed 1168 2077 368 25.1925 2.175415
Balloon previous 4372 1819 232 33.3404 2.518433
proposed 1224 2246 322 33.4197 2.197266
Sailboat previous 6004 1719 219 26.9581 2.703857
proposed 1248 2404 281 26.8869 2.214478

V. C OMPUTATIONAL E XPERIMENTS
We carried out computational experiments to confirm the
effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for VQ. The training
image to construct a CB is shown in Fig. 5. We constructed
the CB according to the procedures described in section 3.
The second level DWT is computed as shown in Fig. 1. Then
we computed LFDs of the image which consists of DWT
coefficients except for the upper left image (lower frequency
band). Based on the LFDs, the image was divided into three
blocks of 2 × 2, 4 × 4, and 8 × 8 in size. These blocks
of pixels constitute input vectors for VQ. We encoded five
test images (Lenna, Airplane, Balloon, Sailboat) by VQ with
variable block size. To use a merging algorithm, we divided
the image of DWT coefficients into blocks of 2 × 2 and
4 × 4 in size. The division was carried out by the same
procedure as VQ with variable block size. We applied the
merging algorithm described in section 4 to these images
divided by two different block sizes. After applying the
merging algorithm, there were three blocks of different sizes
in the image: 2 × 2, 4 × 4, and 8 × 8. Then we encoded
the image using VQ with variable block size. The upper left
image was quantized by scalar quantization with 64 levels.
A comparison of the methods, VQ with variable block size
proposed previously and VQ with variable block size using
the merging algorithm, is shown in Table 1.
As shown in Table 1, in the image ”Lenna”, the number
of blocks of 2×2 in size obtained using the previous method
is 5188, while that obtained using the proposed method is
1709, a reduction of 32.8%. However, the number of blocks
of 4×4 in size obtained by the proposed method increases by
23.6% compared with the number obtained by the previous
method. The number of blocks of 8 × 8 in size obtained
by the proposed method increases by 19.7% compared with
the number obtained by the previous method. As a result,
bpp of the proposed method decreases by 12% compared
with that of the previous method. In P SN R, two decoded
images show almost the same values. There is no substantial
difference in image quality. For the other images, almost
the same results were obtained. This can be confirmed from
both Fig. 6 and Fig. 7. Experimental results show that our
proposed method using a merging algorithm is effective for
Fig. 5. Training image to construct a CB.
VQ with variable block size.
VI. C ONCLUSIONS
We have proposed a block merging algorithm for VQ
with variable block size. The algorithm is based on the
method proposed by Shih and Cheng [14]. As shown in (23),
compression rate with VQ is determined by the number of
indexes of an encoded image. Therefore, if this number can
be reduced, compression rate can be improved. This is a
basic motivation to introduce a merging algorithm. Results of
computational experiments show that the proposed algorithm
is effective for VQ with variable block size.
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Fig. 6. Lenna image (top left), the image compressed by the proposed
method (top right), and the image compressed by the previous method
(bottom left).

Fig. 7. Airplane image (top left), the image compressed by the proposed
method (top right), and the image compressed by the previous method
(bottom left).

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