Concealing Damaged Coded Images Using Improved FSE with Critical Support Area

Abstract

The transmission over error-prone networks of block-based coded images may results in the lost of the several images blocks, degrading drastically the visual quality of images. Consequently, if retransmission is not feasible, then applications of error concealment techniques are required to reduce this degradation caused mainly by the missing information. This paper proposes an adaptive and effective method to select the required support area, using suited base functions and optimal expansion coefficients, in order to conceal the damaged blocks in critical error situations. This method outperforms the concealment done by the conventional frequency selective extrapolation approach. It also performs well in current situations where significant loss of information is present and the data of the past reference images are also not available. The proposed method and the reviewed algorithms were implemented, tested and compared. Experimental results show that the proposed approach outperforms existing methods by up to 7.2 dB.