Image transmission system and method employing compression and error correction

Abstract

A system and method that introduces intentional errors into a compression scheme for images. The intentionally introduced errors along with error correction processing enable improved low entropy encoding of the images. The errors transmitted over a communication channel are reduced by adding an error correction code to the transmitted data. In an exemplary system and method, an image is blocked to create a plurality of pixel blocks. The blocked image is transform coded and quantized to quantize transform coefficients. The image is low entropy coded. The image is error correction coded to improve communication through a communication channel that introduces errors. The entropy coded coefficients are truncated to introduce intentional errors into the image that is communicated over a communication channel. Upon reception, blocks of the received image are expanded to produce entropy coded coefficients, which are error correction decoded. The error correction decoded entropy coded coefficients are low entropy decoded to produce quantized transform coefficients. The quantized transform coefficients are inverse quantized to produce the plurality of transform coefficients. The transform coefficients are inverse transformed to produce the plurality of image blocks. Finally, the plurality of image blocks are unblocked to produce the transmitted image.