What is Image Compression?

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In the field of Image processing, the compression of images is an important

step before we start the processing of larger images or videos. The
compression of images is carried out by an encoder and output a compressed
form of an image. In the processes of compression, the mathematical
transforms play a vital role. A flow chart of the process of the compression of
the image can be represented as:

In this article, we try to explain the overview of the concepts involved in the
image compression techniques. The general representation of the image in a
computer is like a vector of pixels. Each pixel is represented by a fixed number
of bits. These bits determine the intensity of the color (on grayscale if a black
and white image and has three channels of RGB if colored images.)

Why Do We Need Image Compression?

Consider a black and white image that has a resolution of 1000*1000 and each
pixel uses 8 bits to represent the intensity. So the total no of bits required =
1000*1000*8 = 80,00,000 bits per image. And consider if it is a video with
30 frames per second of the above-mentioned type images then the total
bits for a video of 3 secs is: 3*(30*(8, 000, 000))=720, 000, 000 bits

As we see just to store a 3-sec video we need so many bits which is very huge.
So, we need a way to have proper representation as well to store the
information about the image in a minimum no of bits without losing the
character of the image. Thus, image compression plays an important role.
Basic steps in image compression:
 Applying the image transform
 Quantization of the levels
 Encoding the sequences.

Transforming The Image

What is a transformation(Mathematically):
It is a function that maps from one domain(vector space) to another
domain(other vector space). Assume, T is a transform, f(t):X->X’ is a
function then, T(f(t)) is called the transform of the function.

In a simple sense, we can say that T changes the shape(representation) of the

function as it is a mapping from one vector space to another (without changing
basic function f(t) i.e. the relationship between the domain and co-domain).
We generally carry out the transformation of the function from one vector
space to the other because when we do that in the newly projected vector
space we infer more information about the function.

Transforms in Image Processing

The image is also a function of the location of the pixels. i.e I(x, y) where (x, y)
are the coordinates of the pixel in the image. So we generally transform an
image from the spatial domain to the frequency domain.
Why Transformation of the Image is Important:

 It becomes easy to know what all the principal components that make up
the image and help in the compressed representation.
 It makes the computations easy.
o Example: finding convolution in the time domain before the
transformation:

 Finding convolution in the frequency domain after the transformation:

 So we can see that the computation cost has reduced as we switched to the
frequency domain. We can also see that in the time domain the convolution
was equivalent to an integration operator but in the frequency domain, it
becomes equal to the simple product of terms. So, this way the cost of
computation reduces.
So this way when we transform the image from domain to the other carrying
out the spatial filtering operations becomes easier.

Quantization

The process quantization is a vital step in which the various levels of intensity
are grouped into a particular level based on the mathematical function
defined on the pixels. Generally, the newer level is determined by taking a
fixed filter size of “m” and dividing each of the “m” terms of the filter and
rounding it its closest integer and again multiplying with “m”.

Basic quantization Function: [pixelvalue/m] * m

So, the closest of the pixel values approximate to a single level hence as the no
of distinct levels involved in the image becomes less. Hence we reduce the
redundancy in the level of the intensity. So thus quantization helps in reducing
the distinct levels.
Eg: (m=9)

Thus we see in the above example both the intensity values round up to 18
thus we reduce the number of distinct levels (characters involved) in the
image specification.

Symbol Encoding

The symbol stage involves where the distinct characters involved in the image
are encoded in a way that the no. of bits required to represent a character is
optimal based on the frequency of the character’s occurrence. In simple terms,
In this stage codewords are generated for the different characters present. By
doing so we aim to reduce the no. of bits required to represent the intensity
levels and represent them in an optimum number of bits.
There are many encoding algorithms. Some of the popular ones are:

 Huffman variable-length encoding.

 Run-length encoding.

In the Huffman coding scheme, we try to find the codes in such a way that
none of the codes are the prefixes to the other. And based on the probability of
the occurrence of the character the length of the code is determined. In order
to have an optimum solution the most probable character has the smallest
length code.
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Thus in this way, the mechanism of quantization helps in compression. When
the images are once compressed its easy for them to be stored on a device or
to transfer them. And based on the type of transforms used, type of
quantization, and the encoding scheme the decoders are designed based on
the reversed logic of the compression so that the original image can be re-built
based on the data obtained out of the compressed images