Lossless Visible Three-Dimensional Watermark of Digital Elevation Model Data

Abstract

Digital elevation model (DEM) data describe the information of ground elevation. So it is important to protect the copyright of digital elevation model data. A lossless visible 3-D watermarking algorithm to protect DEM data is proposed in this paper. The copyright watermarking is embedded in the DEM data by an visible way. The original data, blocked by 3-D visible watermarking, are hidden in the watermarked DEM data by a generalized histogram algorithm. Because the visible watermark blocks a part of DEM data, illegal users are restricted to retrieve. At the same time, 3-D visible watermark can identify the copyright. Without original 3-D watermark data, authorized users can eliminate the 3-D visible watermark and restore the original DEM data lossless by applying the proposed algorithm. It is a blind watermarking algorithm. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has satisfactory security and can effectively protect the copyright of DEM data.