A simple block-based lossless image compression scheme

A novel low-complexity lossless scheme for continuous-tone images dubbed the PABLO codec (Pixel And Block adaptive LOw complexity coder) is introduced. It comprises a simple pixel-wise adaptive predictor and a block-adaptive coder based on the Golomb-Rice coding method. PABLO is an asymmetric algorithm requiring no coding dictionary and only a small amount of working memory on the encoder side. Due to the simplistic data structure for the compressed data, the decoder is even simpler lending itself to very fast implementations. Experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed scheme when compared against other state-of-the-art compression systems of considerably more complexity.