Embedded color image coding with virtual SPIHT

This paper proposes an efficient extension of virtual set partitioning in hierarchical trees (VSPIHT) for color image coding. Our new scheme, Color-Virtual-SPIHT (CVSPIHT) generates fully embedded bit stream similar to SPIHT. It combines the zerotrees of three color planes in two steps. First, zerotrees within the same color planes are joined together by VSPIHT, then resulting longer zerotrees of three planes are combined through a novel composite tree. The simulation results show the improved performance of the proposed method compared to a SPIHT based color coding scheme.