Advanced Materials Research Vols 503-504 (2012) pp 23-26 Online: 2012-04-12

© (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.503-504.23

Anti-Counterfeiting Jingdezhen Ceramic Decal Manufacturing Technique

based on Digital Watermarking Method

Junxiang Wang 1,a , Li Fu 2,b

1
College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, China
a
wjx851113851113@yahoo.cn (corresponding author), b faye70323@163.com

Keywords: ceramic decal manufacture; copyright protection; print-scan resistance; fire discoloration
resistance

Abstract. The traditional digital watermarking, as a copyright protection technique, has been widely
applied for the multimedia information, such as text, picture, video, etc. In this paper, a new scheme is
planned to embed watermark into the porcelain decal for describing the property declaration of
Jingdezhen ceramics. Since the images on Jingdezhen ceramic are manually created, it cannot be
regularly modulated by the watermark during the watermark embedding process. Therefore, the
digital watermarking technique cannot be directly applied to the ceramics. This paper presents a
specially designed digital watermarking system for the protection of the ceramic property. The results
from the experiment show that our proposed algorithm achieves the purpose.

Introduction
The traditional watermarking method is adopted as the copyright protection scheme for multimedia,
such as digital image, video, text, etc. Brassil et al. [1] reported the method to conceal the specific
electronic marking into the general image data. The technique on spectrum watermarking for
multimedia is developed by Cox et al. [2]. Wolfgang et al. [3] investigated the algorithm to expand
m-series onto two dimensions system, and improve the inspection procedure by the cross-correction
functions.
However, an efficient scheme for the copyright protection on ceramics production, especially
for Jingdezhen Ceramic, is still missing. Until now, all efforts on the copyright protection are focused
on the construction and enforcement of the laws and regulations. Chen et al. [4] and Jin [5]
summarized the analysis and suggestions on the application of the protection for “Original from
Jingdezhen”. Yan [6] categorized all possible torts and then gave the corresponding active solutions.
The goal was to effectively curb the abuses, along with strengthen the awareness of IPR protection.
Wu [7] defined the concepts of porcelain famous masterpiece, explained the reason for the tort. In
Wu’s paper, the solutions were provided from improving the legislative system, strengthening the
government leadership, improving law enforcement and establishing the porcelain information
platform.
In this paper, an innovated copyright protection scheme is presented. Such scheme implements a
specific framework targeting on Jingdezhen Ceramic, based on digital watermarking method.

The Framework of Ceramic Copyright Protection Based the Digital Watermarking Technique
From the previous papers [8,9] that we published, a common framework of ceramic copyright
protection based on the digital watermarking method is divided to three sections:
(1) Watermark preparation and design
The content of watermark information can be designed freely. The main purpose is to prove whom
the copyright belongs to. Such information will be extracted in the identification of the copyright
work. The procedure of the watermark design is shown as Fig.1.

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24 Frontiers of Manufacturing Science and Measuring Technology II

Xiaoming number Watermark

w1
Fig.1 The diagram for watermark generation

(2) Embedding the watermark and ceramic decal manufacture

Embedding the watermark takes the watermark information as modulation information, and the
target information as carrier information. It modifies the carrier information of trace amounts
according to the content of the modulation information, to achieve the purpose of embedding the
watermark in the target. Figure.2 shows the procedure of this section.

The production of decal

Watermark
‘w’ Embed- Emb- Decal plate Print-
ding edded Stego-decal
Sepa- burn- ing
algorith- (paper
Original decal ration ing
version) ceramic Protected
m
Iw sintering ceramic
decal ‘ I ’
Ceramic

Fig. 2 The technical framework for watermark embedding

(3) Watermark extraction and anti-counterfeiting decal identification

Via using the extraction algorithm corresponding to the embedding algorithm, the watermark can
be detected and identified. In this paper, the watermark extraction operation on the copyright
protected ceramic is preformed, and it provides data for the follow-up demonstration of the copyright
information. The devices involved can be the Laser Scanner, or any other image capturer. Figure.3
shows the technique framework.

Y
Laser Eztra-
Embe- Success
scanning ction
Protected dded watermark comparison
ceramic decal algor- N
Iw’ ithm
Failure

Fig. 3 The technical framework for watermark extracting

To achieve the purpose of copyright protection for the ceramics, the watermark presenting the
copyright should still exists after porcelain decal production, ceramic calcinations and ceramic
scanning processes, which means that our proposed watermarking technique should be robust to the
above-mentioned process.

The Manufacturing Technique to Resist the Attack of Ceramic Calcinations

During the ceramic sintering, since only the pattern covered by image paper is doped and the color
changing of the image paper only works on the pattern area, the non-covered area keeps unchanged.
Based on this characteristic, the watermark is embedded into the pattern after the binarization of the
image paper. In order to ensure the quality of the pattern, the revision on the pattern image from the
watermark should be visually invisible. The detail algorithm is shown as following:
1) Convert the pattern color image I to the same size binary image I ' , with ‘1’ denoting color
pixels and ‘0’ representing no color pixels.
 Advanced Materials Research Vols. 503-504 25

2) Embed the watermark information w into the halftone binary image I ' , and then generate the
watermarking image I 'w . During this procedure, the visual invisibility of revision has to be guaranteed.
In other words, the distortion should be relatively small.
3) Compared the generated watermarking binary image I 'w with the original pattern image, and
then the copyright protected pattern color image I w is restored from image I . The detail algorithm is:
while I 'w =’1’, the pixel of I is colorful, then the pixel in I w is set to be the same color. While I 'w =’1’,
the pixel of I has no color, the color of corresponding pixel in I w is set to be the interpolation of
neighbor pixel’s color, to ensure the distortion small. When I 'w =’0’, the pixel in I w is set to be no
color.

The Manufacturing Technique to Resist the Attack of Porcelain Decal Production and
Scanning
The papers are made by screen-printing technology, and the basic unit is the grid information. The
principle is similar to the laser printer. And the laser scan’s principle is similar to the optical scanner.
Therefore it is critically important to design the effective watermark embedding and identification
algorithms to resist printing-scan attack. The literature [10] investigated the whole procedure of
print-scan and provided an inverse halftone method based on binarization of image. Such method
established an industrial standard model for print-scan procedure, and supported our anti-attack
techniques.

Experimental Results
As shown in Fig.4, we achieve the purpose of protection the ceramic copyright. Compared with the
golden color image paper, the changed color image paper after sintering, and the corresponding
binarization images, we observed that after the sintering, the golden image paper changed color
obviously, but still belonged to the colorful range: dark red before sintering and bright red after
sintering with some bright noise pixels. Nevertheless, the binarization images kept relatively stable
characteristic. It proved that the binarization image characteristic mentioned in this paper is robust.

a) Original decal b) Original decal halftone image c) Original watermark d) Embedded decal

e) Decal after sintering and discoloration f) Decal halftone image after scanning g) Extracted watermark

Fig. 4 The illustration for the ceramic copyright protection

26 Frontiers of Manufacturing Science and Measuring Technology II

Conclusion
In this paper, the digital watermarking method is applied to Jingdezhen ceramic copyright protection.
The overall technology framework is constructed, and a robust watermarking algorithm is given to
against the abuse of image papermaking and the attack from the color changing of image paper
re-sintering. The experiment proved our method is robust enough.

References
[1] J. Brassil, S. Low, N. Maxemchuk. Electronic marking and identification techniques to discourage
document copying. IEEE Jour. Select. Areas Common.. Vol. 13 (1995), p. 1495-1504.
[2] I. J. Cox, J. Kilian, T. Leighton. Secure spread spectrum watermarking for multimedia. IEEE
Trans. on Image Processing. Vol. 6 (1997), p. 1673-1687.
[3] R. B. Wolfgang, E. J. Delp. Overview of image security techniques with applications in
multimedia system. Proceeding of the SPIE Conference on Multimedia Networks: Security, Displays,
Terminals and Gateways. Vol. 3228 (1997), p. 297-308.
[4] S. Chen, J. Han. The analysis of the protection system of the origin for the jingdezhen ceramics.
Foshan ceramics. Vol. 11 (2008), p. 29-32, in Chinese.
[5] X. H. Jin. Legal protection of the original Name of Jingdezhen ceramics and the gold lettered
signboard “Jingdezhen”. Journal of Jingdezhen College. Vol. 19 (2004), p. 10-13, in Chinese.
[6] T. Yan, N. J. Wu. Study on the infringing upon rights and protective model of ceramic intellectual
property right in jingdezhen. China Ceramics. Vol. 44 (2008), p. 36-39, in Chinese.
[7] B. Y. Wu, T. Yan, Y. Wang. Legal protection of the Intellectual property of Jingdezhen ceramic.
Market Modern. Vol. 9 (2008), p. 272-273, in Chinese.
[8] J. X. Wang. A robust watermarking scheme to resist the ceramic sintering attack. Computer
knowledge and technology. Vol. 7 (2011), p. 2406-2407, in Chinese.
[9] J. X. Wang, B. Yang, Y. H. Zhu. Study on anti-counterfeiting decal making technique based on
watermarking algorithm. Journal of ceramics. Vol. 32 (2011), p. 87-90, in Chinese.
[10] T. D. Kite, N. D. Venkata, B. L. Evans. A fast high-quality inverse halftoning algorithm for error
diffused halftones. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. Vol. 9 (2000), p. 1583-1592.
Frontiers of Manufacturing Science and Measuring Technology II
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.503-504

Anti-Counterfeiting Jingdezhen Ceramic Decal Manufacturing Technique Based on Digital

Watermarking Method
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.503-504.23