Jean-Marc Chassery

Geometrically invariant watermarking using feature points

This paper presents a new approach for watermarking of digital images providing robustness to geometrical distortions. The weaknesses of classical watermarking methods to geometrical distortions are outlined first. Geometrical distortions can be decomposed into two classes: global transformations such as rotations and translations and local transformations such as the StirMark attack. An overview of existing self-synchronizing schemes is then presented. Theses schemes can use periodical properties of the mark, invariant properties of transforms, template insertion, or information provided by the original image to counter geometrical distortions. Thereafter, a new class of watermarking schemes using the image content is presented. We propose an embedding and detection scheme where the mark is bound with a content descriptor defined by salient points. Three different types of feature points are studied and their robustness to geometrical transformations is evaluated to develop an enhanced detector. The embedding of the signature is done by extracting feature points of the image and performing a Delaunay tessellation on the set of points. The mark is embedded using a classical additive scheme inside each triangle of the tessellation. The detection is done using correlation properties on the different triangles. The performance of the presented scheme is evaluated after JPEG compression, geometrical attack and transformations. Results show that the fact that the scheme is robust to these different manipulations. Finally, in our concluding remarks, we analyze the different perspectives of such content-based watermarking scheme.

Very Fast Watermarking by Reversible Contrast Mapping

Reversible contrast mapping (RCM) is a simple integer transform that applies to pairs of pixels. For some pairs of pixels, RCM is invertible, even if the least significant bits (LSBs) of the transformed pixels are lost. The data space occupied by the LSBs is suitable for data hiding. The embedded information bit-rates of the proposed spatial domain reversible watermarking scheme are close to the highest bit-rates reported so far. The scheme does not need additional data compression, and, in terms of mathematical complexity, it appears to be the lowest complexity one proposed up to now. A very fast lookup table implementation is proposed. Robustness against cropping can be ensured as well

Exact histogram specification

While in the continuous case, statistical models of histogram equalization/specification would yield exact results, their discrete counterparts fail. This is due to the fact that the cumulative distribution functions one deals with are not exactly invertible. Otherwise stated, exact histogram specification for discrete images is an ill-posed problem. Invertible cumulative distribution functions are obtained by translating the problem in a K-dimensional space and further inducing a strict ordering among image pixels. The proposed ordering refines the natural one. Experimental results and statistical models of the induced ordering are presented and several applications are discussed: image enhancement, normalization, watermarking, etc.

Generic Remeshing of 3D Triangular Meshes with Metric-Dependent Discrete Voronoi Diagrams

In this paper, we propose a generic framework for 3D surface remeshing. Based on a metric-driven Discrete Voronoi Diagram construction, our output is an optimized 3D triangular mesh with a user-defined vertex budget. Our approach can deal with a wide range of applications, from high-quality mesh generation to shape approximation. By using appropriate metric constraints, the method generates isotropic or anisotropic elements. Based on point sampling, our algorithm combines the robustness and theoretical strength of Delaunay criteria with the efficiency of an entirely discrete geometry processing. Besides the general described framework, we show the experimental results using isotropic, quadric-enhanced isotropic, and anisotropic metrics, which prove the efficiency of our method on large meshes at a low computational cost.

Fractal image compression based on Delaunay triangulation and vector quantization

Presents a new scheme for fractal image compression based on adaptive Delaunay triangulation. Such a partition is computed on an initial set of points obtained with a split and merge algorithm in a grey level dependent way. The triangulation is thus fully flexible and returns a limited number of blocks allowing good compression ratios. Moreover, a second original approach is the integration of a classification step based on a modified version of the Lloyd algorithm (vector quantization) in order to reduce the encoding complexity. The vector quantization algorithm is implemented on pixel histograms directly generated from the triangulation. The aim is to reduce the number of comparisons between the two sets of blocks involved in fractal image compression by keeping only the best representative triangles in the domain blocks set. Quality coding results are achieved at rates between 0.25-0.5 b/pixel depending on the nature of the original image and on the number of triangles retained.

Approximated Centroidal Voronoi Diagrams for Uniform Polygonal Mesh Coarsening

We present a novel clustering algorithm for polygonal meshes which approximates a Centroidal Voronoi Diagram construction. The clustering provides an efficient way to construct uniform tessellations, and therefore leads to uniform coarsening of polygonal meshes, when the output triangulation has many fewer elements than the input mesh. The mesh topology is also simplified by the clustering algorithm. Based on a mathematical framework, our algorithm is easy to implement, and has low memory requirements. We demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed scheme by processing several reference meshes having up to 1 million triangles and very high genus within a few minutes on a low‐ end computer.

Color image watermarking using quaternion Fourier transform

The paper presents a digital color image watermarking scheme using a hypercomplex numbers representation and the quaternion Fourier transform (QFT). Previous color image watermarking methods are first presented and the quaternion representation is then described. In this framework, RGB pixel values are associated with a unique quaternion number having three imaginary parts. The QFT is presented; this transform depends on an arbitrary unit pure quaternion, /spl mu/. The value of /spl mu/ is selected to provide embedding spaces having robustness and/or perceptual properties. In our approach, /spl mu/ is a function of the mean color value of a block and a perceptual component. A watermarking scheme based on the QFT and the quantization index modulation scheme is then presented. This scheme is evaluated for different color image filtering processes (JPEG, blur). The fact that perceptive QFT embedding can offer robustness to luminance filtering techniques is outlined.

An Iterative Segmentation Method Based on a Contextual Color and Shape Criterion

An iterative segmentation method is presented and illustrated on specific examples. Full control of each iteration step is obtained by combining local and global properties according to a model of the image structure. A consistent convergence criterion is derived from additional image structure properties and a test is proposed to evaluate adequacy of segmentation.

Robust watermarking based on the warping of predefined triangular patterns

Numerical information is volatile and watermarking is a solution to assist copyright protection. During the detection step, the synchronization of the mark is a great problem. Geometric transformations can defeat the detector of the mark by desynchronizing the mark. Our scheme is based on warping of pre-defined triangular patterns. The content of the image (feature points) is used to mark independently different regions. This allows the synchronization of the mark for the detection step. Feature points mixed with a Delaunay tessellation permits to mark each triangle of the image. The detection is performed by warping triangle to a reference pattern and correlating with a reference triangle. Different algorithms have been developed in the spatial domain and in the frequential (DCT) domain. Our results show that our schemes are robust to Stirmark and other geometric transformations on different categories of images.

Using the fractal code to watermark images

Our paper presents a watermarking scheme based on an insertion of similarities. In the first part different watermarking techniques are presented and classed. In the second part our scheme is described in its spatial and frequential implantations. Finally the different results and perspectives of the work are outlined.