• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.66-79
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• 2009

In this paper, we propose a new adaptive intra coding technique using 1-D and 2-D integer transforms for improving coding efficiency of H.264/AVC. Proposed technique selects the most effective transform and prediction mode for each block after processing 1-D and 2-D transforms of all prediction modes. In case of using 1-D transform, $4{\times}4$ block is divided into four $1{\times}4$ or $4{\times}1$ subblocks and then each subblock is predicted and subtracted by using the decoded subblock located at the nearest position in the direction of prediction. After prediction error subblock is processed by 1-D transform and quantization, four subblocks are merged back into original $4{\times}4$ block and then, reordered as 1-D signal by a DC biased zigzag scanning pattern according to the prediction mode. Finally, comparing the coding efficiency between bitstreams based on 1-D transform and conventional 2-D transform, prediction mode and quantized coefficients for each block are decided and corresponding quantized coefficients are transmitted. Experimental results show that the proposed adaptive technique increases 0.34dB in BD-PSNR and decreases 4.03% in BD-Bitrate on the average compared with H.264/AVC.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.56-65
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• 2009

Stereoscopic images consist of the left image and the right image. Thus, stereoscopic images have much amounts of data than single image. Then an efficient image compression technique is needed, the DPCM-based predicted coding compression technique is used in most video coding standards. Motion and disparity estimation are needed to realize the predicted coding compression technique. Their performing algorithm is block matching algorithm used in most video coding standards. Full search algorithm is a base algorithm of block matching algorithm which finds an optimal block to compare the base block with every other block in the search area. This algorithm presents the best efficiency for finding optimal blocks, but it has very large computational loads. In this paper, we have proposed fast disparity estimation algorithm using motion and disparity vector information of the prior frame in stereo image coding. We can realize fast disparity vector estimation in order to reduce search area by taking advantage of global disparity vector and to decrease computational loads by limiting search points using motion vectors and disparity vectors of prior frame. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has better performance in the simple image sequence than complex image sequence. We conclude that the fast disparity vector estimation is possible in simple image sequences by reducing computational complexities.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 2008

With the rapid development of display technology as well as the diversity of display, image quality assessment plays an important role in display color reproduction. The image quality has described by objective evaluation based on the physical measured data, such as contrast ratio, color reproduction range, color temperature, and gamma characteristics, etc., however, the final judgement is achieved by perceptual quality assessment of observers. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the relationship between physical performance of display and perceptual image quality. Thus, in order to evaluate objectively the color reproduction characteristics of two mobile displays, TFT-LCD and AMOLED, we measured the darkroom contrast ratio of full screen, luminance and color temperature of full-screen white, full-screen gray and color linearity, tone reproduction of color scales for each RGB primary, and color reproduction range. Then the pair-wise comparison is implemented for image experts and naive observers not only to judge their preference on principal evaluation attributes but also to subjectively describe perceived image quality. Through two evaluation processes, we derived the objective bases that can prove the results of subjective image quality assessment by interconnecting physical factors that have influence on observers' preference judgements. Finally, this paper provided important information for improving the image quality and increasing preference from an observer's point of view.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.55-63
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• 2008

Ridge orientations of fingerprint image are crucial informations in many parts of fingerprint recognition such as enhancement, matching and classification. Therefore it is essential to extract the ridge orientations of image accurately because it directly affects the performance of the system. The two main properties of ridge orientation are 1) global characteristic(gradual change in whole part of fingerprint) and 2) local characteristic(abrupt change around core and delta points). When we only consider the local characteristic, estimated ridge orientations are well around singular points but not robust to noise. When the global characteristic is only considered, to estimate ridge orientation is robust to noise but cannot represent the orientation around singular points. In this paper, we propose a novel method for estimating ridge orientation which represents local characteristic specifically as well as be robust to noise. We reduce the noise caused by scar using iterative outlier rejection. We apply adaptive measurement resolution in each fingerprint area to estimate the ridge orientation around singular points accurately. We evaluate the performance of proposed method using synthetic fingerprint and FVC 2002 DB. We compare the accuracy of ridge orientation. The performance of fingerprint authentication system is evaluated using FVC 2002 DB.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2008

In this paper, we propose an auto-detection algorithm of basal cell carcinoma(BCC) from the protophorphyrin IX(PpIX) fluorescence image induced by appling the methyl 5-aminolaevulinate(MAL) ointment-induced protophorphyrin IX(PpIX) to the skin tumour area and then shining the wood lamp on the area. The proposed algorithm first generates 3 mask areas-tumor area, suspected tumor area and tumor free area and then applies local watershed algorithm to the turner and the suspected tumor areas to make small watershed regions that include similar luminance value pixels. Next, small watershed regions are merged by hierarchical queue based fast region merging that uses the difference between the average luminance values of adjacent watershed regions as a region merging criterion and finally BCC regions are detected. 50 tissue samples are acquired from the tumour regions of 10 patients with BCC that are extracted by using the proposed algorithm and are performed pathological examination by expert dermatologist. Experiment result shows the rate of tumor detection from BCC lesion using presurgical in vivo of MAL-indeuced PpIX fluorescence has high sensitivity 94.1% and relatively high specificity 82.6%.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2008

We propose a welfare interface using multiple fecial features tracking, which can efficiently implement various mouse operations. The proposed system consist of five modules: face detection, eye detection, mouth detection, facial feature tracking, and mouse control. The facial region is first obtained using skin-color model and connected-component analysis(CCs). Thereafter the eye regions are localized using neutral network(NN)-based texture classifier that discriminates the facial region into eye class and non-eye class, and then mouth region is localized using edge detector. Once eye and mouth regions are localized they are continuously and correctly tracking by mean-shift algorithm and template matching, respectively. Based on the tracking results, mouse operations such as movement or click are implemented. To assess the validity of the proposed system, it was applied to the interface system for web browser and was tested on a group of 25 users. The results show that our system have the accuracy of 99% and process more than 21 frame/sec on PC for the $320{\times}240$ size input image, as such it can supply a user-friendly and convenient access to a computer in real-time operation.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2008

Coloriztion algorithms, which hide color information into gray images and find them to recover color images, have been developed recently. In these methods, it is important to minimize the loss of original information while the color components are embedded and extracted. In this paper, we propose a colorization method using a wavelet packet transform in order to embed color components with minimum loss of original information. In addition, the compensation processing of color saturation in the recovered color images is achieved. In the color-to-gray process, an input RGB image is converted into Y, Cb, and Cr images, and a wavelet packet transform is applied to the Y image. After analyzing the amounts of total energy for each sub-band, color components are embedded into two sub-bands including minimum amount of energy on the Y image. This makes it possible not only to hide color components in the Y image, but to recover the Y image with minimum loss of original information. In the gray-to-color process, the color saturation of the recovered color images is decreased by printing and scanning process. To increase color saturation, the characteristic curve between printer and scanner, which can estimate the change of pixel values before and after printing and scanning process, is used to compensate the pixel values of printed and scanned gray images. In addition, the scaling method of the Cb and Cr components is applied to the gray-to-color process. Through the experiments, it is shown that the proposed method improves both boundary details and color saturation in the recovered color images.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.11-21
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• 2008

In conventional video coding, the complexity of encoder is much higher than that of decoder. However, as more needs arises for extremely simple encoder in environments having constrained energy such as sensor network, much investigation has been carried out for eliminating motion prediction/compensation claiming most complexity and energy in encoder. The Wyner-Ziv coding, one of the representative schemes for the problem, reconstructs video at decoder by correcting noise on side information using channel coding technique such as turbo code. Since the encoder generates only parity bits without performing any type of processes extracting correlation information between frames, it has an extremely simple structure. However, turbo decoding errors occur in noisy side information. When there are high-motion or occlusion between frames, more turbo decoding errors appear in reconstructed frame and look like Salt & Pepper noise. This severely deteriorates subjective video quality even though such noise rarely occurs. In this paper, we propose a computationally extremely light encoder based on symbol-level Wyner-Ziv coding technique and a new corresponding decoder which, based on a decision whether a pixel has error or not, applies median filter selectively in order to minimize loss of texture detail from filtering. The proposed method claims extremely low encoder complexity and shows improvements both in subjective quality and PSNR. Our experiments have verified average PSNR gain of up to 0.8dB.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.27-37
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• 2008

Applications of 3D data increase with advancement of multimedia technique and contents, and it is necessary to manage and to retrieve for 3D data efficiently. In this paper, we propose a new method using the sliced shape which extracts efficiently a feature description for shape-based retrieval of 3D models. Since the feature descriptor of 3D model should be invariant to translation, rotation and scale for its model, normalization of models requires for 3D model retrieval system. This paper uses principal component analysis(PCA) method in order to normalize all the models. The proposed algorithm finds a direction of each axis by the PCA and creates orthogonal n planes in each axis. These planes are orthogonalized with each axis, and are used to extract sliced shape image. Sliced shape image is the 2D plane created by intersecting at between 3D model and these planes. The proposed feature descriptor is a distribution of Euclidean distances from center point of sliced shape image to its outline. A performed evaluation is used for average of the normalize modified retrieval rank(ANMRR) with a standard evaluation from MPEG-7. In our experimental results, we demonstrate that the proposed method is an efficient 3D model retrieval.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.70-77
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• 2008

This paper proposes a new text candidate region detection method that uses genetic algorithm based on information of the segmented regions. In image segmentation, a classification of the pixels at each color channel and a reclassification of the region-unit for reducing inhomogeneous clusters are performed. EWFCM(Entropy-based Weighted C-Means) algorithm to classify the pixels at each color channel is an improved FCM algorithm added with spatial information, and therefore it removes the meaningless regions like noise. A region-based reclassification based on a similarity between each segmented region of the most inhomogeneous cluster and the other clusters reduces the inhomogeneous clusters more efficiently than pixel- and cluster-based reclassifications. And detecting text candidate regions is performed by genetic algorithm based on energy and variance of the directional edge components, the number, and a size of the segmented regions. The region information-based detection method can singles out semantic text candidate regions more accurately than pixel-based detection method and the detection results will be more useful in recognizing the text regions hereafter. Experiments showed the results of the segmentation and the detection. And it confirmed that the proposed method was superior to the existing methods.