Visual entropy gain for wavelet image coding

Wavelet image coding exhibits a robust error resilience performance by utilizing a naturally layered bitstream construction over a band-limited channel. In this letter, a new measure that appears to provide a better assessment of visual entropy for comparing and evaluating progressive image coders is defined based on a visual weight over the wavelet domain. This visual weight is characterized by the human visual system (HVS) over the frequency and spatial domains and is then utilized as a criterion for determining the coding order of wavelet coefficients, resulting in improved visual quality. A transmission gain, which is expressed by visual entropy, of up to about 23% can be obtained at a normalized channel throughput of about 0.3. In accordance with the subjective visual quality, a relatively high gain can be obtained at a low channel capacity.