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Using edge direction information for measuring blocking artifacts of images

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Abstract

Block-based transform coding is the most popular approach for image and video compression. The objective measurement of blocking artifacts plays an important role in the design, optimization, and assessment of image and video coding systems. This paper presents a new algorithm for measuring blocking artifacts in images and videos. Instead of using the traditional pixel discontinuity along the block boundary, we use the edge directional information of the images. The new algorithm does not need the exact location of the block boundary thus is invariant to the displacement, rotation and scaling of the images. Experiments on various still images and videos show that the new blockiness measure is very efficient in terms of computational complexity and memory usage, and can produce blocking artifacts measurement consistent with subjective rating.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ViXS Systems Inc., 245 Consumers Road, Toronto, ON, M2J 1R3, Canada

    F. Pan

  2. School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Block N4, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, Singapore, 639798

    W. S. Lin

  3. Institute for Infocomm Research, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore, Singapore, 119613

    X. Lin, S. Rahardja & E. P. Ong

Authors
  1. F. Pan
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  2. X. Lin
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  3. S. Rahardja
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  4. E. P. Ong
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  5. W. S. Lin
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Correspondence to F. Pan.

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Pan, F., Lin, X., Rahardja, S. et al. Using edge direction information for measuring blocking artifacts of images. Multidim Syst Sign Process 18, 297–308 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11045-006-0008-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11045-006-0008-6

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