Adapted Scan Based Lossless Image Compression

This paper deals with the application of lossless compression algorithms to two-dimensional curves scanned images. An image is scanned along a space filling curve (SFC) so as to exploit inherent coherence in the image. The used SFC is determined by a gradient based method allowing the detection of global pixel's change direction for each image block. The resulting one-dimensional representation of the image has improved auto-correlation compared with universal scans such as the Peano-Hilbert space filling curve. Combined with conventional coding algorithms the proposed algorithm shows significant compression efficiency improvement. The new algorithm used for SFC determination is presented and used as an input to conventional coding schemes.