A MODIFIED APPROACH TO FRACTAL ENCODING OF BINARY IMAGES

Abstract

In the paper, a new modified version of the fractal image encoding technique, adapted to process binary (black and white) images, is presented. A few invariant image parameters (image smoothness estimates, in particular) are introduced and employed to state the necessary image similarity condition. The latter condition plays a key role in the search process for optimal pairings (range block – domain block), i.e., it enables to narrow greatly the search region (domain pool) for each range block. Experimental analysis results show that implementation of the new modified fractal image encoding technique accelerates image compression times considerably. Exceptionally good results (compression times and quality of restored images) are obtained for binary silhouette images.