Reversible Image Watermarking with Differential Histogram Shifting and Error Prediction Compensation

차이값 히스토그램 쉬프팅과 오류 예측 보정을 이용한 가역 영상 워터마킹

  • 여동규 (국립금오공과대학교 컴퓨터공학부) ;
  • 이해연 (국립금오공과대학교 컴퓨터공학부) ;
  • 김병만 (국립금오공과대학교 컴퓨터공학부) ;
  • 김경수 (KT 네트워크연구소)
  • Received : 2009.11.18
  • Accepted : 2010.04.08
  • Published : 2010.06.15

Abstract

Reversible watermarking inserts watermark into digital media in such a way that visual transparency is preserved and then enables to restore the original media from the marked one without any loss of media quality. This watermarking can be applied to quality-sensitive imaging such as medical imaging, military imaging, remote-sensing imaging, and precious artwork, where the original media should be preserved during image processing and analysis. In this paper, a reversible image watermarking technique that embeds message bits by modifying the differential histogram of adjacent pixels is presented. In order to satisfy both high embedding capacity and visual quality, the proposed technique exploits the fact that adjacent pixels in the image have highly spatial correlation. Also, we prevent overflow/underflow problem and salt-and-pepper artifacts by employing a predicted error compensation scheme. Through experiments using various test images, we prove that the presented technique provides perfect reversibility and high embedding capacity, while maintaining the induced-distortion low.

가역 워터마킹 기법은 디지털 콘텐츠에 지각적 투명성을 유지하며 워터마크를 삽입한 후에, 이를 아무런 손상 없이 원본 상태로 복원할 수 있는 메시지 은닉 수단이다. 영상의 품질이 매우 중요한 의학, 군사, 원격측량, 예술작품 분야에서 워터마킹 응용은 영상처리와 분석과정에서 손상 없는 원본이 필요하기 때문에, 메시지를 검출하고 원본으로 복원하는 과정에서 어떠한 손상이라도 허용될 수 없는 완전한 가역성이 보장되어야 한다. 본 논문에서는 영상의 인접한 픽셀들 간의 차이값 히스토그램을 수정하여 메시지를 은닉하는 가역 영상 워터마킹 알고리즘을 제안한다. 제안한 방법에서는 높은 삽입용량과 지각적 투명성을 만족하기 위해 영상의 인접 픽셀들 간의 높은 유사성 특징을 이용하였다. 또한 오류 예측 보정 기법을 통하여 워터마크 삽입과정에서 발생할 수 있는 오버/언더플로우 문제와 salt-and-pepper 잡음 현상을 방지하였다. 제안한 가역 워터마킹 알고리즘의 성능을 검증하기 위하여 다양한 영상들에 대하여 기존 알고리즘들과 비교 분석하였다. 실험 결과에 따르면 제안한 알고리즘은 완전한 가역성과 함께 낮은 왜곡을 유지하면서도 높은 삽입용량을 얻을 수 있었다.

Keywords

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