Approximation and compression with sparse orthonormal transforms

We propose a new transform design method that targets the generation of compression-optimized transforms for next-generation multimedia applications. The fundamental idea behind transform compression is to exploit regularity within signals such that redundancy is minimized subject to a fidelity cost. Multimedia signals, in particular images and video, are well known to contain a diverse set of localized structures, leading to many different types of regularity and to nonstationary signal statistics. The proposed method designs sparse orthonormal transforms (SOTs) that automatically exploit regularity over different signal structures and provides an adaptation method that determines the best representation over localized regions. Unlike earlier work that is motivated by linear approximation constructs and model-based designs that are limited to specific types of signal regularity, our work uses general nonlinear approximation ideas and a data-driven setup to significantly broaden its reach. We show that our SOT designs provide a safe and principled extension of the Karhunen-Loeve transform (KLT) by reducing to the KLT on Gaussian processes and by automatically exploiting non-Gaussian statistics to significantly improve over the KLT on more general processes. We provide an algebraic optimization framework that generates optimized designs for any desired transform structure (multiresolution, block, lapped, and so on) with significantly better n -term approximation performance. For each structure, we propose a new prototype codec and test over a database of images. Simulation results show consistent increase in compression and approximation performance compared with conventional methods.