A VISUAL PROGRAMMING TOOL FOR JTIDS DELIVERY OF COMPRESSED VIDEO IN NOISY ENVIRONMENTS

This proposal addresses the problem of identifying a video compression technique appropriate for the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS). The key issues are: (1) JTIDS provides relatively low bandwidths to any individual user and so requires high compression ratios, and (2) the channel itself is inherently noisy. Unlike traditional compression studies we consider the specific issue of compression in the presence of a noisy channel. Joint source coding and channel coding design is proposed to maximize image throughput. Specific algorithms are proposed since they are either part of the National Imagery Transmission Format Standard (NITFS) and therefore mandated, or are potential candidates for inclusion into NITFS. NITFS currently uses JPEG for still frame compression and makes use of decoders which can recover when errors are encountered. Similar techniques can be incorporated in other high compression algorighms, including wavelets and Optivision's own Recursive Block Coding (RBC), which are currently being studied by Kodak for possible inclusion into NITFS. The proposal innovation is to design in Phase I, and implement in Phase II, a visual programming tool allowing the user to construct or modify image compression algorighms and noise models by clicking and dragging processing stages represented as onjects on the screen. This object oriented design is platform-independent and can take advantage of any computational resources present. The tool will be used in Phase II to select compression algorithms for use with JTIDS based on subjective evaluations of the decompressed imagery produced by various compression algorighms when a channel introduces noise.