IMPLEMENTATION OF DCT BASED

COMPRESSION TECHNIQUE FOR SAR IMAGES

Presented by:
S. Javeed Basha
S. Masthan Shareef
S. Mohammed Abid
S. Mubarak
 ABSTRACT
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is an active remote sensing system which has applications in agriculture, ecology,

geology, oceanography, hydrology, military, etc. Remote Sensing techniques are powerful tools for many civilian

and military applications. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is able to produce high resolution coherent images of a

scene in any light and weather condition. However, in many cases high spatial, radiometric and temporal resolutions

are required, leading to a large amount of data to be transmitted and/or stored.

Image compression is a key technology in transmission and storage of digital images. Hence, SAR Image

compression provides many advantages such as faster data transmission, effective data storage, high resolution

images etc. In this paper we introduce the use of the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to perform near lossless data

compression of complex valued SAR image. In this paper we have used the Transform based Image Compression

method inorder to compress the SAR Image with the help of Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT). Finally, we have

compressed different sets of SAR Images and thus compared the results.
 Motivation & Objectives of Project
Motivation:
Objectives:
Image compression is a key technology in

transmission and storage of digital images because of The objectives of our project are:
vast data associated with them. Image compression
a) Implementation of DCT based SAR Image
can benefit users by having images load faster and for
Compression System.
faster transmission. SAR images have wide

applications in remote sensing and mapping of b) Validation of Implemented System using

surfaces of the Earth and other planets. Real & Synthetic SAR Dataset.
Hence SAR image compression using different
c) Assessing the system performance for areas
compression techniques produces different results
with varying degree of heterogeneity.
based on our desired needs.
 Introduction to SAR Images

What is an SAR Image?

Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) is a form of radar that is
used to create two dimensional images or three
dimensional reconstruction of objects, such as landscapes.

Some more details of SAR Images:

• SAR Imaging System

• SAR Image Characteristics

• SAR Image Structure

• Creation of SAR Image

 Image Compression
Image Compression:
Image compression is the process of encoding or converting an image file in such a way that it consumes less
space than the original file. It is a type of compression technique that reduces the size of an image file without
affecting or degrading its quality to a greater extent. It helps to occupy less disk space or storage space. This is
due to the fact that when compressed, quantity of bits used to store the information is reduced.The Compressed
data is read/written faster than the original data.

Types of Image Compression:

1. Lossy Compression. Eg: Transform Coding, Chroma sub sampling

2. Lossless Compression. Eg: Run-length coding, entropy encoding

 Image Compression Model
f(x,y) Source Channel Channel Source f
Channel Decoder
`(x,y) Encoder Encoder Decoder

Fig: Basic Image Compression Block

Source Encoder & Decoder:

Symbol
f(x,y) Mapper Quantizer Encoder

channel

Symbol Inverse
Decoder
f `(x,y)
Mapper
 SAR Image Compression
Why SAR Image Compression ?
What is need of SAR Image Compression?
Types of SAR Image Compression:
For SAR image compression, there are generally three compression coding methods: predictive
encoding, vector quantization, and transform encoding.
Predictive encoding is mostly used to compress relatively small image compression. Vector quantisation
also plays a role in SAR image compression. However, vector quantization cannot solve the problem of
SAR image reconstruction distortion, and it is accompanied by a large amount of computation.
The transform encoding has a positive effect on the compression ratio, the quality of the reconstructed
image, and the complexity of the algorithm.
 Block Transform Coding

The above shown is the figure of block transform coding technique.

For SAR Image compression, we have used the Block Transform Coding technique to compress the
SAR Image.
It is one of the most efficient and widely used method for SAR Image Compression.
 Transforms used for SAR Image Compression
The following are the various transforms used for SAR Image Compression.
 2D Discrete Fourier Transform
 Discrete Cosine Transform

 Discrete Wavelet Transform

 Haar Transform

 Walsh Transform
 Hadamard Transform

 Slant Transform

For this project, we have used the DCT ( Discrete Cosine Transform).
 DCT based SAR Image Compression
Introduction to DCT:

DCT is an orthogonal transform which is

used widely in optical image compression for
its computational efficiency and its energy
compaction property. The idea behind
orthogonal transforms is to transform the
image to new domain where the image is
represented ideally by uncorrelated coefficients
of which very few carry significant energy and
the remaining ones can be quantized to zero.

There are many different forms of DCT, but the

widely used form is as shown in figure.
Zig-Zag Scanning:
Zig Zag scanning is used in image and video coding to reduce
the number of coded zero transform coefficients, typically
coded by a lossless encoder. After a transform (say, DCT) and
quantization, many quantized coefficients will be zero. All
these coefficients are next coded using a lossless encoder.

Zig Zag scanning is not a property of DCT itself but rather a

part of the transform based image compression. It moves from
low frequency component to high frequency component and as
most of the energy is stored in low frequency component. Zig
Zag scanning is employed after the quantization of DCT
coefficients per NxN image block, and before the
category/Run length coding of the quantized coefficients.
Topics to be discussed:
Symbol Encoder
Symbol Decoder
Merging
Various Performance Measures:
Many different performance measures can be used to compare image compression techniques.

Commonly used Quality Measures:

Although the following performance measures are most commonly used in image processing applications they are
not very compliant with subjective quality. Since all of them are global measures they cannot judge local
variations of the processed image.

Mean Square Error (MSE):

The mean square error is one of the most commonly used performance measures in image and signal processing.
For an image of size N M it can be defined as

Where x[n,m] is the original image and x^[n,m] is the decompressed image.
Normalized MSE(NMSE):
MSE is normalized with the variance of the original signal to give NMSE,

Signal to Noise Ratio(SNR):

SNR can be defined as

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio(PSNR):

PSNR is the most commonly used performance measure for image processing applications. It can be defined
as,
 Comparative Performance Assessment
of Various SAR Images
File Size – 56 kb File Size – 36 kb
File Size – 32 kb File Size - 20 kb
 Conclusion
Concluding Remarks:
The aim of this work is implementation of DCT based SAR image compression. We have performed SAR
image compression using real and synthetic data. We have compared different set of SAR images with
varying degrees of heterogeneity. 
Scope for Further Research, Directions:

In this project we are going to compare DCT based technique using the performance criteria listed in
previous section. Although SAR images are mostly assessed by humans, standard quality measures do not
use any known properties of the human visual system. For example, the human visual system is not as
sensitive to high frequencies as low frequencies, but standard measures give equal importance to all
frequencies. Our aim in this project is to simulate the best performance giving DCT based technique and
compare their performance with more appropriate quality measures such as PSNR and MSE.
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