# Stripe-Based Futurism-like Image--A New Type of Art and Its Application to Cover Communication
## 3 Data Embedding and Extraction via Art Images
### Proposed Data Hiding Process  
A detailed algorithm describing the aforementioned details of the proposed data embedding process is presented in the following section. The algorithm is essentially based on the output data of Algorithm 1 with data embedding steps included additionally. However, different from Algorithm 1, which uses all RGB colors freely to create stripe-based Futurism-like art images, some special colors, namely, the black and nearly black  
Figure 12: A flowchart of the proposed data embedding process. colors (0, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1), (1, 0, 0) and the color white (255, 255, 255), are used to accomplish the tasks of drawing the inter-stripe partition lines, locating the start points and the next points of the region boundaries, and painting the inner part of the stripes. Such tasks are indispensable for the purpose of extracting the right information or hidden data successfully in the message data extraction process described in the next section. Therefore, the colors in the regions of the source image should be adjusted slightly in advance to avoid using these special colors in the data embedding process described in the Algorithm 2. Specifically, if the RGB color values (\(C_{r}\), \(C_{g}\), \(C_{b}\)) in the source image are found to be one of the above special colors, then the values 0 and 255 in them are reset to be 1 and 254, respectively. To the user, the slight color alternations in the image cause nearly no visual effect because the human vision system cannot detect such extremely little color differences. Furthermore, when the message-bit sequence is not long enough to be hidden in all the image regions, then as described in the Algorithm 2, in those regions that are not used for data embedding, stripes are generated as well and filled with the average region color (\(C_{r^{\prime}}\), \(C_{g^{\prime}}\), \(C_{b^{\prime}}\)), or the color white (255, 255, 255) randomly, according to a table like Table 2, which is controlled by a secret key \(K\). This scheme yields a stego-image with randomly colored region stripes, showing a uniform appearance of shape and color randomness in the stego-image which increases hidden data security and hopefully arouses no suspicion in observers or even hackers. ```
Input: a cover stripe-based Futurism-like art image \(S\), a secret key \(K\), a secret message \(M\), and a parameter value of the stripe width \(W_{s}\). Output: a stego-image \(I\) into which \(M\) is embedded. Steps. Stage 1--Randomizing the message bits and adjusting the colors of the source image. 1. Transform the secret massage \(M\), which has eight bits for each character, into a bit sequence \(M^{\prime}\), and randomize the bits in \(M^{\prime}\) by the secret key \(K\). 2. Create a 2-to-3 mapping table \(T\) like that shown in Table 2, with the listing order of the 3-bit items in the second column of the table being randomized by the secret key \(K\) as well. 3. Transform every two bits of \(M^{\prime}\) into three bits according to the created mapping table \(T\), resulting in a new sequence \(M^{\prime}\). 4. Append the ending pattern in table \(T\) to the end of \(M^{\prime}\) to form a new bit sequence with a length of (\(M^{\prime}\times 3\))/2 + 3. 5. Divide \(M^{\prime}\) into a series of 3-bit segments \(m_{1}\), \(m_{2}\),..., \(m_{n}\). 6. If the RGB color (\(C_{r}\), \(C_{g}\), and \(C_{b}\)) of any pixel in the cover image \(S\) is one of the black and nearly black colors (0, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1), (1, 0, 0), or the color white (255, 255, 255), then reset the values 0 and 255 in them to be 1 and 254, respectively. Stage 2--Constructing a data hiding sequence of the intact regions. 7.