Lossless chain code compression with an improved Binary Adaptive Sequential Coding of zero-runs

Abstract

A new method for encoding a sequence of integers, named Binary Adaptive Sequential Coding with Return to Bias, is proposed in this paper. It extends the compressing pipeline for chain codes’ compression consisting of Burrows Wheeler Transform, Move-To-Front Transform, and Adaptive Arithmetic Coding. We also explain when to include the Zero-Run Transform into the above-mentioned pipeline. The Zero-Run Transform generates a sequence of integers corresponding to the number of zero-runs. This sequence is encoded by Golomb coding, Binary Adaptive Sequential Coding, and the new Binary Adaptive Sequential Coding with Return to Bias. Finally, a comparison is performed with the two state-of-the-art methods. The proposed method achieved similar compression efficiency for the Freeman chain code in eight directions. However, for the chain codes with shorter alphabets (Freeman chain code in four directions, Vertex Chain Code, and Three-OrThogonal chain code), the introduced method outperforms the referenced ones.