Coding of arbitrarily shaped objects using pace code

Pace code, a new technique for the shape coding in object-based image technology is presented in this article. It is a lossless, contour-based scheme in which contour pels on the shape contour curve are encoded directly. Similar to the well-known chain code, our method encodes the spatial relation between pels on the neighboring shape contour curve, but it uses a concept called pace which records the relationship differently. Experiment result shows that the proposed algorithm has the best coding efficiency among most contour-based schemes and requires low coding computation.