Block-based SVD image watermarking in spatial and transform domains

Abstract

The idea of this paper is to implement an efficient block-by-block singular value (SV) decomposition digital image watermarking algorithm, which is implemented in both the spatial and transforms domains. The discrete wavelet transform (DWT), the discrete cosine transform and the discrete Fourier transform are exploited for this purpose. The original image or one of its transforms is segmented into non-overlapping blocks, and consequently the image to be inserted as a watermark is embedded in the SVs of these blocks. Embedding the watermark on a block-by-block manner ensures security and robustness to attacks such like Gaussian noise, cropping and compression. The proposed algorithm can also be used for colour image watermarking. A comparison study between the proposed block-based watermarking algorithm and the method of Liu is performed for watermarking in all domains. Simulation results ensure that the proposed algorithm is more effective than the traditional method of Liu, especially when the watermarking is performed in the DWT domain.