A review of different prediction methods for reversible data hiding

Abstract

In recent times, prediction error expansion (PEE) based reversible data hiding (RDH) schemes have gained significant traction due to their performance in terms of embedding capacity and image quality. However, the major part of their performance is dependent on how good the prediction has been. For a good prediction, various predictors such as median edge detection (MED), rhombus mean, least square, convolution neural network based predictor (CNNP) have been introduced. In this paper, a review of the working predictors being used in PEE-RDH is presented and discussed. In addition, a new predictor using extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) is introduced in reversible data hiding. The XGBoost predictor makes use of a machine learning algorithm, where several optimization techniques are combined to get accurate results. To evaluate the performance comprehensively, experimental results considering different test images have been used and analyzed. From the analysis, it has been found that the XGBoost provides better prediction accuracy than some of the existing predictors. However, its performance is not up to the level of some other popular predictors such as least square, CNNP.