A hierarchical compression engine

The main goal of the research activity here presented is to realise a dedicated real-time architecture for still-images compression based on a multiresolution approach for the three phases of image transformation, compression and coding. The algorithm embedded into the architecture is adaptive on the input image characteristics, and it is based on a well-known instance of wavelet transform: the Haar transform. The algorithm has been tested in a rather exhaustive set of benchmarks and has been cast into a single-chip design. The paper introduces the main features of the algorithm and describes the problem of mapping the algorithm into a dedicated architecture. The result of this mapping is the chip described.