An algorithm for low memory wavelet image compression

As wavelet-based image coding is set to became more widely used (e.g. with the completion of the JPEG2000 standard), memory efficiency for wavelet-based coding is becoming an increasingly important issue. In this paper we present a complete system to perform low memory wavelet image coding. Our approach is "line-based" in that the images are read line by line and only the minimum required number of lines is kept in memory. The line-based transform is combined with a low memory entropy coder that does not require any global image information. Our system achieves a large (two orders of magnitude) reduction in memory requirements compared to other available coders, with limited performance loss (e.g., less than 0.5 dB).