Recursive Chain Coding Method for Lossless Digital Image Compression

摘要

Image compression addresses the problem of reducing the amount of data required to represent a digital image. Digital images require large amounts of memory to store and, when retrieved from the internet, can take a considerable amount of time to download. In this paper, the authors propose a new approach to image compression using chain coding which traces contours present in the image. The novelty and better compression ratio of the method is due to its recursiveness in tracing the contours. The proposed method starts with the original image and develop chain codes in a recursive manner, marking the pixels visited earlier and expanding the entropy in eight directions. The proposed method is experimented with sample bitmap images and results are compared with Recursive Crack Coding. The method is implemented in uni-processor machine using C language source code.