Median lifting optimization for lossy edge-dominant image compression

In JPEG2000, the Cohen-Daubechies-Feauveau (CDF) 9/7-tap wavelet filter is implemented using the conventional lifting scheme. On the other hand, this wavelet filter has two problems: the filter coefficients remain complex, and the conventional lifting scheme does not consider the image edges in the coding process. This paper proposes an effective lifting scheme to solve these problems. For this purpose, optimal 9/7-tap wavelet filters were designed in two steps. In the first step, the appropriate filter coefficients were selected. In the second step, a median operator was employed to consider the image edges. The experimental results with the median lifting scheme and the combination of filter optimization with the median lifting show that the proposed methods outperform the well-known CDF 9/7-tap wavelet filter of JPEG2000 on the edge-dominant images.