Power of a wavelet coefficient in progressive image transmission -: art. no. 087004

We offer a method for the a priori evaluation of the division of power among the various wavelet coefficients when they are used to reconstruct the original scene through a prioritization protocol. The method is based on applying a technique of the mathematical theory of games to social power. The analysis is fairly general and not specific to wavelet transform configurations. It is equally applicable to linearly spaced subband decompositions, and to other more general subband decompositions, such as wavelet packets and Laplacian pyramids. Here we show a prioritization protocol based on the utility-per-coding-bit optimization that is consistent with the power distribution imposed by the set partitioning sorting algorithm on the set of wavelet coefficients. (c) 2005 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.