A simplified fractal image compression algorithm

A. selim*, M. M. Hadhoud$,, M. I. Dessouky# and F. E. Abd El-Samie#

*ERTU,Egypt
$
Dept. of Inform. Tech., Faculty of Computers and Information , Menoufia Univ., 32511, Shebin Elkom , Egypt.
# Dept. of Electronics and Elect. Communications., Fac. of Electronic Eng., Menoufia Univ., 32952, Menouf ,
Egypt.
E-mails: a_seleem_87@yahoo.com , mmhadhoud@yahoo.com and fathi_sayed@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
This paper proposes a simplified fractal image compression algorithm on a
block by block basis. This algorithm achieves a compression ratio of up to 10 with
a peak signal to noise ratio PSNR as high as 35db. The idea of the proposed
algorithm is based on the segmentation of the image , first, into blocks to setup
reference blocks. The image is then decomposed again into block ranges and a
search is carried out to find the reference blocks with best match. The transmitted
values are the reference block values the indices of the range’s match. If there is no
match , the average value of the block range is transmitted. The advantage of the
proposed algorithm is the simple computation with high PSNR achieved.

Keywords: Cmopression, Fractal, Decomposition, Segmentation.

1 INTRODUCTION
There are many techniques used to compress the
image and video, one of them is the fractal which is
based on the partition of the image into regions or
blocks. It doesn’t depend on the translation of the
image to the frequency domain as deferential pulse
code modulation DPCM, which depends on discrete
cosine transform DCT. DPCM suffers from blocking
artifacts which is not the case in fractal code. The
image compression based on fractal image
compression (FIC) is one of the most popular
modern image coding methods since 1988. It uses
the self similarly method feature and has many
characters such as, long coding time, fast decoding,
high compression ratio, and decoding image has no
related to resolution [1,2,3]. Barnsly was the first one
who gave the attractor model of the two dimension
affine transforms. He brought and developed
methods to compress the image based on the iterated
function system [8],[ 9], [10]. Generally FIC is a loss
compression technique.
In fractal image compression, the image is divided
into numbers of block domains by any shape and any
size (usually 16x16 to 2x2) then the image is divided
again to block ranges with size less than that of block
domain. There are many methods to obtain attractors
to decode the image. Some of these methods are,
block segmentation, region segmentation and cross
searching; these expand self-similar fractal serial
image coding. Other methods are fast fractal image
coding based on notably irevant check, image
compression and coding method based on fractal
dimension, and hierarchy fractal image compression
method based on fixed vector [1], [3], [5], [6]. Some
of them will briefly be explained in sections (2-1),
and (2-2). In our proposed algorithm the image is
divided into equal squared regions, then search about
reference blocks in each region. The image again is
divided into block ranges. Then we search the
reference blocks for a matched range, its indices is
transmitted instead of the range itself. If there is no
matched reference, the average of the range is
transmitted. In the decoder all the pixels of the range
equal the average value. In this algorithm we don’t
use the count of the transformation which increases
the complexity of the encoder; it uses the absolute
difference to determine the similarity between the
blocks.
The resulted or decoded image is acceptable with
PSNR>30, at compression ratio=10. The main
advantage of the proposed algorithm is that it is a
simple in encoding and decoding. Our proposed
algorithm is explained in section 3. Some results are
explained in section 4. Section 5 is for the
Conclusion.
2 Basics of Fractal Image Compression
The word fractal was coined by Mandelbrot
from the Latin word fractus, meaning broken, to
describe objects that were too irregular to fit into
traditional geometrical settings. Several definitions
have been proposed. Mandelbrot defined a fractal to
be a set with Hausdorff dimension strictly greater
than its Euclidean dimension, i.e., a set for which
the only consistent description of its metric
properties requires a “dimension” value larger than
our standard, intuitive definition of the set’s

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“dimension.” A fractal has a fractional dimension;
thus some people say we get the word fractal from
fractional dimension. According to Bamsley, a
fractal is a geometric form whose irregular details
recur at different scales and angles which can be
described by affine or fractal transforms. Various
other definitions have been proposed, but they are
not complete in that they exclude a number of sets
that clearly ought to be regarded as fractals.
Falconer proposed that it is best to regard a
fractal as a set that has properties such as those
listed below, rather than to look for a precise
definition which will almost certainly exclude some
interesting cases. Typical properties of a fractal are
1. It has a fine structure, i.e., details on
arbitrarily small scales.
2. It is too irregular to be described in
traditional geometrical language, both
locally and globally.
3. It usually has some form of self-similarity,
perhaps approximate or statistical.
4. Its fractal dimension (Hausdorff
dimension) is usually higher than its
Euclidean dimension.
5. In most cases of interest, a fractal is
defined in a very simple way, perhaps
recursively.
In block segmentation (BS) fractal compression
methods, the image of size (N x M) is decomposed
into partitions
2 Types of segmentations
2.1 Block based FIC
In block segmentation (BS) fractal compression
methods the image of size (N x M) is decomposed
into partitions (blocks in this case) called block
domain pool D, each block domain Di of size (a x b)
is;
Di; where 0 <i ≤ N1; and N1 is the number of the
domain blocks
N1=(NxM)/(axb) (1)
To code the image we decompose it again into block
ranges Ri with size (aa x bb) less than the size of Di.
Each block range Ri has the image transform τi,
which is also called the compressive code of the
range block, and contains two parts: gray (Ti), and
geometry (Si) transform or;
τi=Ti+Si (2)
and the total transformation of the total ranges of the
image τ; these transformations saved in or
transmitted to decoder Instead of saving or
transmitting the whole block range[1],[4], where τ is
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τ =∑τi (3)
Where 0< i≥ (N/aa x M/aa) is the number of block
ranges
The processing of FIC is for each range block Ri,
search the domain pool for a block domain which has
minimum distortion (di) after the transformation and
the transform τi which has the minimum di is the
compression code
2.2 Region segmentation
In this method the image is decomposed into regions
-instead of blocks in the BS method-these regions are
called Ri with any size and any shape, τi is the affine
transform from Di (block domain) to Ri and τ; is the
total transformation defined by equ.3.
The FIC processing is to find affine transform τi(Di)
such that the distortion between Di and Ri is defined
by
d(Ri ,τi(Di))<τi (4)
Then the transformations τ are transmitted or saved,
which can be used to decode the image at the
decoder [1,5].
3 The proposed algorithm
The proposed algorithm is based on block and region
segmentation. The steps of the algorithm are as
follows;
1- Load an image of size N x M, if (N/a), and (M/b)
are not integer numbers, we extend the image to
become of reasonable size for each block.
2-Decompose the image into block domains D (i , j)
with size (a x b), (a=b=16 or 8) as in fig.1. Where,
i=1:N/a , and j=1:M/b.
3-Compare all block domains in each region
segmented (which are colored with red, green…) to
detect which of the domain blocks may be used as a
reference.
The test is based on the distortion which is given by
d(D(i,j),D((i+t),(j+w)); (5)
Where t, and w=-1, or 1
This compared to a threshold (thsh) Fig.2.
4- Make a domain pool to be transmitted or saved.
[D1, D2…Di1….DNRB]=[RB(1,1),RB(1,2),…..RB( i , j
),…RB(N/a,M/b)] (6)
Where NRB is the Number of Reference Blocks.
5-Decompose each reference block domain into
blocks called reference ranges Rref of size (aa, bb),
2
which will be saved or transmitted directly without
processing.
6-Count the number of pixels of the transmitted
reference blocks (Ref. Pix);
Ref. Pix= NRB x (a x b) (7)
7-Decompose the image again into block ranges R of
size (aa x bb) (usually aa=bb=4).
8-For each block range Ri search the reference block
ranges in the region of this range, if there is no
matched range, search other reference block ranges
Rref in the other regions.
9-Find the indices of this matched reference (dx , dy),
transmit or save it.
10-Count the number of pixels which is used to
transmit or save the range block (Range pix);
Range pix=2x(number of matched ranges) (8)
Transmit the average of the block range.
12-Count the number of pixels which is used to
transmit averaged blocks (av. Pix);
av.pix = number of averaged blocks (9)
13-The total number of transmitted or saved pixels,
(eqs.6, 7, 8);
dN = av.pix + Range pix + ref. pix (10)
14-The compression ratio is;
CR=(NxM)/dN
(11)
15-After decoding the image, compute the peak
signal to noise ratio PSNR
PSNR = 10 log ( ∑N,M (original image’s pixels –
decoded image’s pixels)) / (number of the original
image’s pixels) ………… (12)
4 Experimental Results
It is obvious that the algorithm doesn’t search for the
affine transforms of each range block; it is directly
search for similarity between the range block and a
reference block in a reference domain based on the
distortion ( eq.5).
-We used two of Mat Lab images “Saturn” and
“pout” of sizes ( 328 x 438)and (291 x 240 )
respectively .
These sizes are extended to (336x448) and
(304x240) respectively.
The sizes of the block domain used are a = b = 16
and 8, the size of the range blocks is, aa x bb=4x4,
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and the threshold takes values from 0.01 to 10.
The decoded “pout” images are shown in figs.4 to
13, and the original image in Fig.3. The original
“Saturn” image is shown in fig. 14, and its decoded
images are shown in Fig.15 to 25.
-The resulted compression ratios are change from 3
to 10, where PSNR s are ranges from 12 to 35 for
“Saturn”
- For “pout” image the CR changes from3.5 up to 7
and PSNR from 13 up to 31
-The decoded images are accepted especially at
higher PSNR (> 20).
- Fig.26 and Fig.27 show the relation between PSNR
versus CR for the two images
- As expected the PSNR decreased by increasing the
threshold which means that we are increase the
distortion in the decoded image and this is a logical
relation. The curves which shows the relation
between the PSNR and the threshold are shown in
Fig.28 and Fig.29.
The resulted decoded images are acceptable with a
CR =10 or 7 in the tow cases.
This algorithm mainly gives the simplification in
encoding the image which is complexity and
consumes a lot of times.
Usually the relation between the PSNR and CR is,
decreasing in PSNR with increasing in CR, but in
our results the PSNR increases with increasing in
CR.
The explanation of this case is;
For each range we are searching the domain pool
(reference domain) for a matching reference range
using a certain threshold (thsh.), if the distortion
between the range and it’s matched range less than
the threshold, we replace the range by its matched
reference range and transmit it. It is not the same but
the distortion between them is less than the
threshold. Which decrease the PSNR.
If there is no matched range with distortion less than
the threshold we transmit the average of the range.
The average is one value (also the number of the
range which has a matched range is decreased) so
CR increase with increasing PSNR.
We can consider that it is a processing of searching
for an optimum values to compress the image, then
we use only this point or the value of threshold.
We can consider that it is a processing of searching
for an optimum values to compress the image, and
then we use only this point or the value of threshold.
This algorithm gives a new method to encode the
image in which instead of use the old iterated
methods we transmit the average of the range for
simplification.
The resulted CR is more than that resulted by some
other methods as spiral architecture [3].
The time consumed to encode and decode the image
by the proposed algorithm is 16 sec in case of block
size of 16x16 and 46 sec in case of 8x8. It is very
fast if we compare this time with times consumed by
3
many other fractal methods which may be thousands
of sec. [2]
5 Conclusion
The paper proposed a simplified fractal image
compression algorithm. The computational
complexity of this algorithm is small. The achieved
compression ratio using this algorithm is moderate.
Experimental results show that algorithm can be used
as a fast fractal based compression algorithm with
high efficiency.
6 References
1- Erjun Zhao Dan Liu: `Fractal image compression
methods: A review` (ICITA`05) 0-7695-2316-1/05
$20.00 2005 IEEE
2- Kin-wah ching Eugene and Ghim-Hwee Ong: `A
two-pass improved encoding scheme for fractal
image compression` (CGIV`06) 0-7695-2606-3/06
$20.00 2006 IEEE
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3- Xiangjian He, Huaqing Wang: `Fractal image
compression on Spiral Architecture` (CGIV`06) 0-
7695-2606-3/06 $20.00 2006 IEEE
4- Barnsly M F A D.: A Better way to compress
image byte, 1988.
5- A Is M, Clarkson T.: Survey of block based
fractal image compression and its application.
6- A.E.Jacquin,: image coding based on fractal
theory of Iterated. Contractive image
transformations, IEEE Trans. On image processing,
18-30,1992.
7- Y. Fisher (editor),: fractal image compression-
theory and applications. Springer-verlag, new york,
USA, 1995.
8- Ning lu, :Fractal imaging, academic press, new
york,1997
9- Brent Wohlberg and Gerhard de Jager: A review
of the Fractal Image Coding Literature, IEEE trans.
On image processing, vol.8,no.12, December 1999.
10-Barnsley M F, Sloan A D.A: better way to
compress images Byte,1988.
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D(1,1) D(1,2) D(1,3) D(1,4) D(1,5) D(1,6) D(1,7) ……
D(2,1) D(2,3) D(2,3) D(2,4) D(2,5) D(2,6) D(2,7) …....
D(3,1) D(3,2) D(3,3) D(3,4) D(3,5) D(3.6) D(3,7) ……
D(4,1) D(4,2) D(4,3) D(4,4) D(4,5) D(4,6) D(4,7) ……
D(5,1) D(5,2) D(5,3) D(5,4) D(5,5) D(5,6) D(5,7)
D(6,1) D(6,2) D(6,3) D(6,4) D(6,5) D(6,6) D(6,7)
D(7,1) D(7,2) D(7,3) D(7,4) D(7,5) D(7,6) D(7,7)
. . . . . . . ………
. . . . . . . ……….
. . . . . . . …..

Figure 1: Block segmentation and block reference searching

……

…....
RB(1,1) RB(1,2)
……

……

RB(2,1) RB(2,2)

. . . . . . . ……
. . . . . . . …
. . . . . . . ……
. . . . . ….
…..

Figure 2: Reference blocks in each region

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 Figure 3: The original image Figure :4 Thsh=0.01, CR=7 Figure 5: Thsh=0.1, CR=6.18
PSNR=31, a=b=16, aa=bb=4 PSNR=30.95, a=b=16, aa=bb=4

Figure 6: Thsh=0.5, CR=4.22 Figure 7: Thsh=1, CR=4.13 Figure 8: Thsh=2, CR=3.8

PSNR=29.6, a=b=16, aa=bb=4 PSNR=26.6, a=b=16, aa=bb=4 PSNR=21.5, a=b=16, aa=bb=4

Figure 9: Thsh=1, CR=2.6 Figure 10: Thsh=2, CR=3.2989 Figure 11: Thsh=0.5, CR =2.1
PSNR=26.7 a=b=8 aa=bb=4 PSNR =20.6, a=b=8, aa=bb=4 PSNR=29.2, a=b=8, aa=bb=4

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Figure 12: Thsh=0.1, CR =5.2 Figure 13: Thsh=0.01,CR =7.2
PSNR =30.5, a=b=8, aa=bb=4 PSNR =34.6, a=b=8, aa=bb=4

Figure 14: The original image Figure 15: Thsh=0.01, CR=9.86, Figure 16: Thsh=5,CR=9.2,
PSNR=35.7,a=b=16,aa=bb=4 PSNR=27.5,a=b=16,aa=bb=4

Figure 19: Thsh=8,CR=8.7,

Figure 17: thsh=4, CR=9.34, Figure 18: thsh=1, CR=9.71, PSNR=17.7, a=b=16, aa=bb=4
PSNR=30.9, a==b=16, aa=bb=4 PSNR=35.7, a=b=16, aa=bb=4

Figure 20: thsh=0.1, CR=9.8, Figure 21: thsh=0.5, CR=9.75, Figure 22: Thsh=10, CR=8.4,
PSNR=35.7, a=b=16,aa=bb=4 PSNR=35.8, a=b=16,aa=bb=4 PSNR=13.1, a=b=16, aa=bb=4

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 Figure 25: Thsh=0.0,1 CR=10.1,
Figure 24: Thsh=0.1, CR=10, PSNR=34.6 a=b=8 aa=bb=4
Figure 23: Thsh=0.5, CR=9.99, PSNR=34.6, a=b=8, aa=bb=4
PSNR=34.6, a=b=8, aa=bb=4

cr vs. PSNR for "saturn" image cr vs. PSNR for "pout" image
40 31

30
35
29

28
30
27

PSNR
PSNR

25 26

25

20 24

23
15
22

21
10 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7
8.4 8.6 8.8 9 9.2 9.4 9.6 9.8 10 CR
CR

Figure 27: CR versus PSNR for “pout” image

Figure 26: CR versus PSNR for “saturn” image

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 thsh vs. PSNR for "saturn" image
40
thsh vs. PSNR for "pout" image
31

30 35

29

30
28

27

P S NR
25
PSNR

26

25
20
24

23 15
22

21 10
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
thsh thsh

Figure 28: PSNR versus threshold for “saturn” image Figure 29: PSNR versus threshold for “saturn” image

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