Perceptual Image Representations for Support Vector Machine Image Coding

Support-vector-machine image coding relies on the ability of SVMs for function approximation. The size and the profile of the e-insensitivity zone of the support vector regressor (SVR) at some specific image representation determines (a) the amount of selected support vectors (the compression ratio), and (b) the nature of the introduced error (the compression distortion). However, the selection of an appropriate image representation is a key issue for a meaningful design of the e-insensitivity profile. For example, in image-coding applications, taking human perception into account is of paramount relevance to obtain a good rate-distortion performance. However, depending on the accuracy of t…

V1 non-linear properties emerge from local-to-global non-linear ICA

It has been argued that the aim of non-linearities in different visual and auditory mechanisms may be to remove the relations between the coefficients of the signal after global linear ICA-like stages. Specifically, in Schwartz and Simoncelli (2001), it was shown that masking effects are reproduced by fitting the parameters of a particular non-linearity in order to remove the dependencies between the energy of wavelet coefficients. In this work, we present a different result that supports the same efficient encoding hypothesis. However, this result is more general because, instead of assuming any specific functional form for the non-linearity, we show that by using an unconstrained approach…

Regularization operators for natural images based on nonlinear perception models.

Image restoration requires some a priori knowledge of the solution. Some of the conventional regularization techniques are based on the estimation of the power spectrum density. Simple statistical models for spectral estimation just take into account second-order relations between the pixels of the image. However, natural images exhibit additional features, such as particular relationships between local Fourier or wavelet transform coefficients. Biological visual systems have evolved to capture these relations. We propose the use of this biological behavior to build regularization operators as an alternative to simple statistical models. The results suggest that if the penalty operator take…

What motion information is perceptually relevant?

Importance of quantiser design compared to optimal multigrid motion estimation in video coding

Adaptive flow computation and DCT quantisation play complementary roles in motion compensated video coding schemes. Since the introduction of the intuitive entropy-constrained motion estimation of Dufaux et al. (1995), several optimal variable-size block matching algorithms have been proposed. Many of these approaches put forward their intrinsic optimality, but the corresponding visual effect has not been explored. The relative importance of optimal multigrid motion estimation with regard to quantisation is addressed in the context of MPEG-like coding. It is shown that while simpler (suboptimal) motion estimates give subjective results as good as the optimal motion estimates, small enhancem…

Perceptual adaptive insensitivity for support vector machine image coding.

Support vector machine (SVM) learning has been recently proposed for image compression in the frequency domain using a constant epsilon-insensitivity zone by Robinson and Kecman. However, according to the statistical properties of natural images and the properties of human perception, a constant insensitivity makes sense in the spatial domain but it is certainly not a good option in a frequency domain. In fact, in their approach, they made a fixed low-pass assumption as the number of discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients to be used in the training was limited. This paper extends the work of Robinson and Kecman by proposing the use of adaptive insensitivity SVMs [2] for image coding u…