Concealing a secret image using the breadth first traversal linear quadtree structure

This paper presents an image hiding method which embeds the secret image in the least significant bits (LSB) of the pixels selected from a cover image. Generally, LSB-related methods are rather sensitive to the modifications on the cover image. To abate the damage to the reconstructed cover image, this proposed method hence embeds the vital data of the cover image in more significant bits. This paper also provides a breadth first traversal (BFT) linear quadtree representation to characterize a compressed binary image. The data in the front of this structure are vital data; yet, those in the rear are the trivial ones. The strategy of this representation does facilitate image embedding.