J. Vis. Commun. Image R.

59 (2019) 33–38

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

J. Vis. Commun. Image R.

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvci

Research on image compression technology based on Huffman coding q

Shuyun Yuan a,b, Jianbo Hu a,⇑
a
Equipment Management and UAV Engineering College, Air Force Engineering University, Xi’an, ShaanXi, China
b
Institute 706, Second Academy of China Aerospace and Industry Corporation, Beijing 100854, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: With the development of information technology, image has become the mainstream of information
Received 10 November 2018 transmission. Compared with character, image contains more information, but because image and char-
Revised 23 December 2018 acter need more storage capacity, it will occupy more bandwidth in network transmission. In order to
Accepted 24 December 2018
transmit image information more quickly, image compression is a good choice. This paper is based on
Available online 26 December 2018
an eye of image compression. The method of image compression in this paper is that firstly, the image
is filtered by wavelet transform to remove the redundant information in the image, and then the
Keywords:
Huffman method is used to encode the image. The simulation results of JPEG format image show that
Image compression
Wavelet transform
the size of the image can be reduced in the same image effect.
Huffman coding Ó 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
JPEG picture

1. Introduction At present, common multimedia compression methods are

The development of modern computers, especially multimedia
computer systems, has become a mainstream direction. Especially
in current computer applications, many videos and audios have
taken the form of digitization, leading to a large amount of data
storage. However, the current development of science and technol-
ogy is limited, and many hardware technologies cannot fully sat-
isfy the requirements of computer storage resources, and the gap
between the bandwidth and the bandwidth is still large [1], so
the data must be compressed before the data storage and transmis-
sion, otherwise the storage and transfer of the computer system
cannot be effectively carried out. Due to the existence of encoding
redundancy, redundancy between pixels, and visual information
redundancy in multimedia data, the original data can be com-
pressed. Data compression technology is actually a series of
re-encoding of the original data, eliminating redundant data in
the original data, reducing the amount of data to a minimum, so
as to achieve the purpose of compressing various media data such
as images, audio, and video [2].
Abbreviations: DCT, Discrete Cosine Transform; ISO, International Organization
for Standardization; CCITT, International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative
Committee; MCU, Minimum Coded Unit; DU, Data Unit; AC, Alternating Current;
DCPM, Differential predictive coding modulation; DC, Direct; SNR, signal-to-noise
ratio.
q In order to make products of different manufacturers compati-
This article is part of the Special Issue on TIUSM.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: 18S103149@stu.hit.edu.cn (S. Yuan), jbhu@iipc.zju.edu.cn
(J. Hu).
divided into lossless compression methods and lossy compression
methods [3]. Lossless compression compresses redundant parts of
the original data. Using lossless compression, the original data can
be completely recovered without any errors or distortions, that is,
after compression and decompression, a copy of the original data is
generated. Its compression ratio is generally 2:1–5:1. As the typical
Double Space technology, the compression ratio of various types of
data and files on the hard disk is about 2:1. Due to the limitation of
the compression ratio, the use of lossless compression alone can-
not handle the storage and transmission problems of digital sound
and video images in real time. Lossy compression is at the expense
of certain information, so that a higher compression ratio can be
achieved [4]. The lossy compression method is mostly used for
images with higher pixels, video, or sound quality files. For this
type of data compression, the compression ratio can be increased
by tens or hundreds of times. Most image compression methods
can take this approach, mainly JPEG, MPFG and other types of files.
The common coding methods used in lossy compression are pre-
dictive coding and transform coding, which allow information to
be lost in the compression process. Although all data cannot be
fully recovered after decompression, but the lost part of the image,
whether the original image or the sound, has little effect on the
understanding of the whole file, it can obtain a good compression
ratio [5].
ble, all countries have attached great importance to the establish-
ment of universal data compression standards. Currently, three

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvcir.2018.12.043
1047-3203/Ó 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
34 S. Yuan, J. Hu / J. Vis. Commun. Image R. 59 (2019) 33–38
data compression coding standards commonly used in multimedia
systems are [6]: ① JPEG standard (ISO CD 10918) for digital com-
pression coding of continuous-tone still images; ② MPEG standard
(ISO/IEC 11172), suitable for compression coding of moving pic-
tures and accompanying sounds on digital storage media; ➂
CCITTH.261 standard, suitable for digital compression coding in
application systems such as video telephony and conference televi-
sion. At present, with the rapid development of the network, the
diverse needs of users, such as the real-time transmission of
streaming media, the compression and transmission of high reso-
lution images, are largely dependent on the multimedia compres-
sion technology. The current image data compression technology
cannot meet the needs of all kinds of network multimedia applica-
tions. Therefore, the research and application of multimedia tech-
nology in network transmission has become more and more
active and attracted much attention, especially the focus of image
data compression. JPEG2000 is the latest achievement of image
compression technology in this form. JPEG2000 can facilitate pro-
gressive transmission, JPEG200O support lossy compression, also
support lossless compression, good low bit rate compression per-
formance and the protection of image security through watermark,
markup, killings and encryption. It has been widely used in image
compression on the network. Based on the JPEG2000 standard, this
paper proposes a JPEG2000 compression method based on wavelet
transform, which can well overcome the ‘‘square” effect caused by
DCT transform in the JPEG. Finally, compare the JPEG2000 of this
paper with the compression effect of JPEG standard and JPEG2000
standard respectively.
2. Image compression technology
2.1. JPEG compression method
JPEG is a compression standard proposed by the ISO (Interna-
tional Organization for Standardization) and the CCITT (Interna-
tional Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee) for
color and monochrome multiple grayscale or continuous-tone still
digital images [7]. There are several modes of JPEG, the most com-
mon of which is the sequential mode based on the DCT transform.
In general, the JPEG compression algorithm operation can be
divided into the following steps [8]: ➀ color change; ② MCU (Min-
imum Coded Unit), DU (Data Unit) and image sampling; ➂ DCT; ④
quantification; ⑤ zigzag scan; ⑥ run-length coding; ⑦ differential
coding in the intermediate format; ⑧ Huffman coding.
(1) color change
JPEG uses YCbCr color space. It is generally necessary to trans-
form the color space of RBG. The RBG information in the original
bitmap is converted to the Y representing brightness and Cb, Cr
values representing chroma, which facilitates the following series
of processing.
(2) MCU (Minimum Coded Unit), DU (Data Unit) and image
sampling
The Y component data is important, and the data of the CbCr
component is relatively insignificant, so only a portion of CbCr
may be taken to increase the compression ratio. Currently, soft-
ware that supports the JPEG format usually provides two sampling
methods, YbCC4rn and YCbCr422 [9], meaning the data sampling
ratio of the three components of YCbCr. Taking into account the
factors of image quality, the JPEG standard specifies the minimum
coding unit MCU. When the JPEG image is encoded and decoded,
the smallest data block processed is an 8
s data block, that is, a
DU.
(3) DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform)
JPGE is a two-dimensional discrete cosine transform algorithm
using an 8x8 sub-block [10]. The algorithm first divides the original
image sequentially into a series of 8
8 sub-blocks. In an 8
8
image block, pixel values generally change more gently, so the
image has a lower spatial frequency. Then discrete cosine trans-
form is performed on the image block, so that the energy of the
image block can be concentrated on a few coefficients in the upper
left corner and the absolute value of these coefficients is very
small. This is conducive to the subsequent compression process.
(4) Quantification
8
8 image block after DCT transform, the low-frequency com-
ponents are concentrated in the upper left corner, high-frequency
components in the lower right corner. Quantification is to discard
the information that has little effect on the visual effect under
the premise of maintaining a certain quality. Linear uniform quan-
tizer is used in JPGE standard. The quantification process is to
divide 64 DCT coefficients by quantification step size and rounding.
The frequency component is kept and the high frequency compo-
nent is suppressed by quantification processing. That is to say,
the compression ratio can be further improved by using fine quan-
tification for Y and coarse quantification for CbCr. In decoding,
inverse quantification is used, that is, the value to be processed is
multiplied by the corresponding position value of the correspond-
ing quantification table.
(5) Zigzag scan
In order to ensure that low-frequency components appear first,
high-frequency components appear afterwards to increase the
number of continuous ‘‘0” in the run length, and the AC (Alternat-
ing Current) coefficient of the other 63 elements of 8
8 except
the DC coefficient F (0,0), the ‘‘Zigzag” (219-Zag) arrangement
method is used, and then run-length encoding is performed.
(6) Run-length coding
The principle of run-length coding: The neighboring pixels with
the same color value in a row are replaced with a count value and
the color value. When the data is quantized, a large number of gen-
erated ‘‘0” can describe their length with only one data.
(7) Differential coding in the intermediate format
Since the DC coefficients of the two adjacent 8x8 blocks are very
small, differential coding DCPM (Differential predictive coding
modulation) is used to increase the compression ratio.
(8) Huffman coding
After getting the middle format, the number of parentheses in
the example above is encoded by Huffman. Figs. 1 and 2 show
the core contents of the processing steps of the encoder and
decoder based on DCT in JPEG [11].
In the encoding process, the source image data is divided into
8
8 blocks. The forward DCT transforms each block into 64 DCT
coefficients. The amplitude of the spatial frequency transform
 S. Yuan, J. Hu / J. Vis. Commun. Image R. 59 (2019) 33–38
Fig. 1. The encoding process based on the DCT encoder.
Fig. 2. The decoding process based on DCT decoder.
coefficients is mostly zero or tends to zero. Thus it is possible to
compress data. The forward DCT formula is [12]:
" #
1 X 7 X 7
ð2x þ 1Þup ð2y þ 1Þv p
Fðu; v Þ ¼ CðuÞCðv Þ f ðx;yÞcos cos ð1Þ
4 x¼0 y¼0
16 16
 pffiffiffi
where CðuÞ; Cðv Þ ¼ 1= 2; ðu; v ¼ 0Þ .
CðuÞ; Cðv Þ ¼ 1; ðotherÞ
After outputting from the forward DCT, the quantizer quantizes
the coefficient values according to the quantification table. Its pur-
pose is to determine the step size Q(u, v) of the quantizer according
to the quality of the desired image, and to represent the DCT coef-
ficient F(u,v) with the corresponding precision to achieve further
compression. Its quantification formula is [13]:
 
Fðu; v Þ
F Q ðu; v Þ ¼ round ð2Þ
Q ðu; v Þ
After quantification, the DC coefficients are differentially
encoded, and the AC coefficients are arranged in ‘‘Z” shape, and
then entropy coding is performed. The step is to perform lossless
compact coding according to the statistical characteristics of quan-
tized coefficients, and the available entropy coding methods are
Huffman coding and arithmetic coding. Among them, Huffman
encoding [14] requires one or more Huffman table statements that
are determined by application. Each 8
8 sample data block, after
the above processing steps, finally outputs compressed image data
for storage or transmission.
The decoding process is the reverse of the encoding process. The
entropy decoder performs Huffman or arithmetic decoding. The
inverse quantification process uses the approximate value
obtained from the decoded data as the input of the inverse DCT.
The inverse DCT transforms 64 coefficients by inverse transforma-
tion to reconstruct a 64 point output image.
The JPGE static image compression standard has been widely
used in many different fields. The DCT transform encoding and
entropy encoding it uses are moderately computationally complex
and easy to implement in hardware [15]. Because it can provide
high compression ratio under the premise of guaranteeing image
quality, JPEG can even be used for continuous image transmission
under higher baud rate by using a dedicated compression chip. The
35
true color image reconstructed by JPEG is hardly different from the
original image stored in one pixel. The facts show that [16] the
JPEG method can achieve satisfactory compression for most types
of images. But the main disadvantage of JPEG based on block DCT
transform is to produce ‘‘square” effect, which seriously affects
the visual effect of decoded images.
2.2. JPEG2000 compression standard
JPGE2000 is a new image compression standard [17], whose
goal is to allow the use of different image models (such as client/
server, real-time transmission and bandwidth resources, and so
on) in a unified integrated system, the static images of different
types (such as binary, grayscale, and so on) having different char-
acteristics (such as natural images, medical images, remote sensing
images, and so on) are compressed. Because JPEG2000 uses
advanced encoding technology [18], JPEG2000 can facilitate pro-
gressive transmission, JPEG200O supports both lossy and lossless
compression, has good low bit rate compression performance,
and watermarking, marking, twisting and encryption can be used
to achieve image security protection. The biggest difference
between the JPEG2000 and the JPEG standards proposed in this
paper is that it abandons the block coding method based on DCT
(Discrete Cosine Transform) used in JPEG, and adopts a multi-
resolution coding method based on wavelet transform. The basic
idea of the image coding method based on wavelet transform
[19] is to decompose the image into a low frequency sub-graph,
a high frequency sub-graph in a horizontal direction, a high fre-
quency sub-graph in a vertical direction and a high frequency
sub-graph in the direction of diagonal lines by using the Mallat
algorithm. After wavelet transform, each level of wavelet decom-
position of the image data always divides the upper-level low-
frequency data into finer frequency bands. This method not only
can obtain better compression effect, but also can overcome the
‘‘square” effect produced by DCT transformation in the JPGE. The
JPEG2000 image encoding and decoding flow chart proposed in
this paper is shown in Figs. 3 and 4.
Before the compression is performed, the source image data
needs to be divided into tile rectangular units, and each tile is
36 S. Yuan, J. Hu / J. Vis. Commun. Image R. 59 (2019) 33–38

Fig. 3. The encoding process based on wavelet transform.

Fig. 4. The decoding process based on wavelet transform.

considered as a small source image. The specific encoding process
steps are:
(1) DC (Direct) level shift. The purpose of the DC level shift is to
subtract these unsigned component sample values.
(2) Component transformation. JPEG2000 encoding provides
two kinds of component transformation: reversible compo-
nent transformation and irreversible component transfor-
mation. The reversible component transformation can be
used for lossless compression and lossy compression. The
irreversible component transformation is only used for lossy
compression. The reversible component transformation and
irreversible component transformation formula are formula
(3) and formula (4), respectively [20]:
8 Rþ2GþB
< Yr ¼
> 4
Ur ¼ R  G ð3Þ
>
:
Vr ¼ B  G
8 tion, and on the basis of the previous layer, the image quality
< Yr ¼ 0:299
R þ 0:587
G þ 0:144
B
> is improved. In this way, when browsing an image on the
Ur ¼ 0:16875
R  0:33126
G þ 0:5
B ð4Þ
>
: may be given a coarser image, and then the second layer
Vr ¼ 0:5
R  0:41859
G  0:08131
B
where R, G, B represent three color components, Yr, Ur, Vr represent
three color components after the transformation.
(3) Wavelet transform. A tile may consist of multiple compo-
nents. Each component becomes a tile-component. Discrete
wavelet transform is performed in units of tile-component.
The number of decomposition stages depends on the specific
application. The Mallat tower wavelet decomposition is per-
formed for each tile. In the wavelet decomposition, a lifting
wavelet transform fast algorithm can be used. The use of a
lifting wavelet transform is faster, requires less computa-
tional complexity, and requires less storage space.
(4) Quantification. After each tile-component is decomposed by
N-level wavelet, (3
N + l) subbands are obtained. Each sub-
band is quantized using different quantification steps, and
the quantized wavelet coefficients are represented by sign
and amplitude values.
(5) Entropy coding. Entropy coding is divided into two steps
[21]: embedded block coding and hierarchical organization
embedded block bit stream. The quantized sub-band is
divided into small code blocks, and the coded blocks are
used as the units for embedded coding. Then the block bit
stream is encoded to calculate the cut-off point of the block
bit stream on each layer. All block bit streams are organized
according to cut-off points to form compressed code streams
with different quality levels. The code stream is hierarchi-
cally organized, each layer contains certain quality informa-
network, the first layer may be transmitted first, the user
may be transmitted, and the image quality may be improved
on the basis of the first layer. With such transmission layer
by layer, different quality reconstructed images can be
obtained.
(6) The compressed code stream of PJEG2000 bit stream is
formed. In order to be suitable for image exchange,
JPEG200O specifies the format for storing compressed bit
stream and decoding required parameters. The compressed
code stream is organized in packets to form the final code
stream.
 S. Yuan, J. Hu / J. Vis. Commun. Image R. 59 (2019) 33–38 37

original image CR=65:1,PSNR=30.9dB

CR=116.5:1,PSNR=30.9dB CR=180.6:1,PSNR=27.01dB

Fig. 5. Effect of different compression ratios of the original image through JPEG2000.

JPEG(CR=3.5:1,54.8kb) JPEG2000(CR=3.45:1,55.3kb)

JPEG(CR=54.9,3.5kb)
JPEG2000(CR=54.1,3.56kb)

Fig. 6. Effect of image compression using JPEG and JPEG2000 with different compression ratios.

3. Experimental results and analysis this paper is used to compress the file with different compression
ratios, the effect of image comparison is shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 5
In the experiment, we chose a bitmap format picture file pic- shows the corresponding image effect after compression and the
ture1.bmp. After the JPEG2000 compression method proposed in SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) of the image at different compression
38 S. Yuan, J. Hu / J. Vis. Commun. Image R. 59 (2019) 33–38
ratios for JPEG2000 images. Where CR is the compression ratio and
PSNR is the peak SNR. From the image effect, the JPEG2000 image
maintains a good SNR at different compression ratios. With a
higher compression ratio, the image of JPEG2000 compression is
smooth and clear.
In addition, a JPGE image picture2.jpg is compressed by differ-
ent compression ratios according to the JPEG2000 compression
method and JPEG compression method introduced in this paper.
The effect of image contrast is shown in Fig. 6.
As can be seen from Fig. 6, in the case of low compression ratio,
there is no significant difference between the two compression
methods, but as the compression ratio increases, the difference
becomes apparent. The ‘‘square” effect of the JPEG image is obvi-
ous, with a large white patch. The JPEG2000 has not been signifi-
cantly distorted.
4. Conclusion
With the rapid development of the network, the diversified
needs of users rely heavily on multimedia compression technology.
The current image data compression technology can not longer
meet the needs of a wide variety of network multimedia applica-
tions. Therefore, more and more attention has been paid to the
research on multimedia compression technology, especially the
compression of image data is the focus of research. And JPEG2000
is the latest result of this type of image compression technology.
JPEG2000 can facilitate progressive transmission, JPEG200O sup-
ports both lossy and lossless compression, has good low bit rate
compression performance, and watermarking, marking, twisting
and encryption can be used to achieve image security protection.
It has been widely used in image compression on the network.
Based on the JPEG2000 standard, this paper proposes a JPEG2000
compression method based on wavelet transform, which can well
overcome the ‘‘square” effect caused by DCT transform in the JPEG.
Finally, the compression effect of JPEG2000 proposed in this paper
is compared with that of JPEG and JPEG2000.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Key Basic Research
Program (No. 2014CB744900) and National Basic Research Pro-
gram of Philosophy and Social Science (No. 17GGL270).
Conflict of interest
There is no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for
their helpful comments and valuable suggestions.
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Shuyun Yuan was born in Nenjiang, Heilongjiang P.R.
China, in 1975. She received the Master degree from
Harbin Engineering University, P.R. China. Now, he
studies in Engineering College, Air Force Engineering
University, Xi’an, P.R. China. His research interests
include information security and big data analysis.
E-mail:18S103149@stu.hit.edu.cn.
Jianbo Hu received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree from
Engineering College, Air Force Engineering University,
Xi’an, China, in 1987 and 1990, and received the Ph.D.
degree from Northwestern Polytechnical University,
Xi’an, China, in 1998. From 1998 to 2001, he did his
postdoctoral research in Institute of Advanced Process
Control, Zhejiang University. Now he is a professor in
Equipment Management and UAV Engineering, Air
Force Engineering University. His research interests
include robust adaptive control, UAV flight control
system, and safety engineering. E-mail: jbhu@iipc.zju
edu.cn, jian_bo_h@163.com.