Beamlet coder: A tree-based, hierarchical contour representation and coding method

A quad-tree-based hierarchical contour representation and coding method is studied. This method is based on multi scale line segments—beamlets. Simulations are reported to evaluate the effectiveness of such an approach. This is a proof-of-concept study. The reported compression ratios are not the “best”. However, the idea of tree-based coding is novel; and this idea has good potential to realize a progressive contour coding, which is important in applications such as content-based video transmission.