No-reference image quality assessment of wavelet coded images

Abstract

In the modern era of Internet, many user-end applications require the estimation of quality of images directly from the bitstreams, as the original image may not be available. This is a challenging issue. In this paper, we propose a novel approach of no-reference (NR) objective quality assessment of wavelet coded images. The proposed method is based on estimation of the contribution of each received bit in an embedded bitstream in the reduction of mean-square error (MSE), assuming initial image with all zero pixel values. Mathematical analysis is carried out to estimate the quantization errors in terms of MSE reduction, in wavelet-based SPIHT coding algorithm. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.