Cellular Automata Codebooks Applied to Compact Image Compression

Abstract

Emergent computation in semi-totalistic cellular automata (CA) is used to generate a set of basis (or codebook). Such codebooks are convenient for simple and circuit efficient compression schemes based on binary vector quantization, applied to the bitplanes of any monochrome or color image. Encryption is also naturally included using these codebooks. Natural images would require less than 0.5 bits per pixel (bpp) while the quality of the reconstructed images is comparable with traditional compression schemes. The proposed scheme is attractive for low power, sensor integrated applications.