User Evaluation of Differential Compression for Motion Imagery

摘要

Motion imagery will play a critical role in future combat operations. The ability to provide a real time, dynamic view of the battlefield, as well as the capability to maintain persistent surveillance, together make motion imagery a valuable source of information for the soldier. Acquisition and exploitation of this rich source of information, however, depends on available communications bandwidth to transmit the necessary information to users. Methods for reducing bandwidth requirements include a variety of image compression and frame decimation techniques. This study explores spatially differential compression in which targets in the clips are losslessly compressed, while the background regions are highly compressed. This study evaluates the ability of users to perform standard target detection and identification tasks on the compressed product, compared to performance on uncompressed imagery or imagery compressed by other methods. The paper concludes with recommendations for future investigations.