Data Compression

The AF04-101 topic solicitation states that the objective of this SBIR is to develop image and video compression techniques that will significantly increase the transmission capability of current data links by providing greater compression ratios without additional degradation relative to current techniques for targeting and tracking. In response, a completely new approach known as virtual object based compression is proposed for data compression. This new approach is an evolving version of the ultimate object-based approach. It is feasible to implement this new approach using today's computing technologies. A virtual object is a segment of a video frame in terms of some features, but it does not need complicated segmentation and classification algorithms to track. We also propose to use the wavelet transform to extract features of virtual objects and use the wavelet transform again for virtual object based compression in the temporal domain. The new approach will increase the compression ratio significantly without degrading the image quality. It is hoped that this new approach will theoretically and practically push the data compression technology to the next level.