Digital image coding using vector quantization (VQ) based techniques provides low-bit rates and high quality coded images, at the expense of intensive computational demands. The computational requirement due to the encoding search process, had hindered application of VQ to real-time high-quality coding of color TV images. Reduction of the encoding search complexity through partitioning of a large codebook into the on-chip memories of a concurrent VLSI chip set is proposed. A real-time vector quantizer architecture for encoding color images is developed. The architecture maps the mean/quantized residual vector quantizer (MQRVQ) (an extension of mean/residual VQ) onto a VLSI/LSI chip set. The MQRVQ contributes to the feasibility of the VLSI architecture through the use of a simple multiplication free distortion measure and reduction of the required memory per code vector. Running at a clock rate of 25 MHz the proposed hardware implementation of this architecture is capable of real-time processing of 480*768 pixels per frame with a refreshing rate of 30 frames/s. The result is a real-time high-quality composite color image coder operating at a fixed rate of 1.12 b per pixel.
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