Fast integer motion estimation for H.264 video coding standard
Multiple block size motion estimation is adopted in the latest JVT/H.264 video coding standard to achieve higher coding efficiency. However, full exhaustive search of all block sizes is computational intensive with motion estimation complexity increasing linearly with the number of block sizes allowed. We propose a fast integer motion estimation method for multiple block size motion estimation (FMBME) which reduces computation significantly. Experimental result shows that, compared with full search, the proposed method can have a speed up factor of four with bit-rate increases within 1%.

title: A capacity estimation technique for JPEG-to-JPEG image watermarking
abstract: In JPEG-to-JPEG image watermarking (J2J), the input is a JPEG image file. After watermark embedding, the image is JPEG-compressed such that the output file is also a JPEG file. We use the human visual system (HVS) model to estimate the J2J data hiding capacity of JPEG images, or the maximum number of bits that can be embedded in JPEG-compressed images.  Watson's HVS model (Proc. SPIE Human Vision, Visual Process., and Digital Display IV, p.202-16, 1993) is modified to estimate the just noticeable difference (JND) for DCT coefficients. The number of modifications to DCT coefficients is limited by JND in order to guarantee the invisibility of the watermark. Our capacity estimation method does not assume any specific watermarking method and thus would apply to any watermarking method in the J2J framework.

title: Rate estimation for H.264/AVC spatial resolution reduction
abstract: The emergence of wireless networks has posed new challenges for multimedia content providers. In particular, many existing video contents have bit-rates and resolutions far exceeding the capability of wireless networks and mobile devices and they need to be adapted before transmission. In this paper, we propose a technique using /spl rho/-domain information to estimate the bit rate of down-sampled video in the H.264/AVC format. The bit rate is estimated in two stages. In the initialization stage, we use a low-complexity algorithm to estimate the /spl rho/-domain parameters for half and quarter resolutions, respectively. In the refinement stage, the estimation error is feed-forwarded to improve the estimation accuracy. Experimental results show that the proposed technique can estimate the bit rate accurately at a wide range of down-sampling ratios.

title: Hybrid inverse halftoning using adaptive filtering
abstract: We propose a novel fast inverse halftoning technique using a combination of spatial varying filtering and spatial invariant filtering. The proposed algorithm is significantly simpler than most existing algorithms. Without explicit edge region classification, the proposed spatial varying filter is shown to be capable of preserving edges effectively.

title: A blind watermarking technique in JPEG compressed domain
abstract: We propose a blind watermarking technique to embed a watermark in the JPEG compressed domain. Low frequency DCT coefficients are extracted to form an M-dimensional vector. Watermarking is achieved by modifying this vector in order to point to the centroid of a particular cell. This cell is determined according to the extracted vector, private keys and the watermark. A dual-key system is used to reduce the chance of the removal of watermark. An iterative approach is used to prevent the removal of the watermark by JPEG re-quantization. Experimental results show that the watermark can be detected when the watermarked image is further compressed using a larger scaling factor.

title: A blind watermarking technique for multiple watermarks
abstract: We propose a blind watermarking technique to embed multiple watermarks simultaneously. It allows the use of correlated key to embed multiple watermarks. A dual-key system is used to reduce the chance of the removal of watermark. Each embedded watermark can be decoded/detected by its own key. One direct approach and two iterative approaches are proposed to reduce the correlation effects among the noise-like keys. Experimental results show that multiple watermarks can be embedded without significant loss in PSNR and the watermark can be detected when the watermarked image is JPEG compressed.

title: Visualizing association rules for text mining
abstract: An association rule in data mining is an implication of the form X/spl rarr/Y where X is a set of antecedent items and Y is the consequent item. For years researchers have developed many tools to visualize association rules. However, few of these tools can handle more than dozens of rules, and none of them can effectively manage rules with multiple antecedents. Thus, it is extremely difficult to visualize and understand the association information of a large data set even when all the rules are available. This paper presents a novel visualization technique to tackle many of these problems. We apply the technology to a text mining study on large corpora. The results indicate that our design can easily handle hundreds of multiple antecedent association rules in a three-dimensional display with minimum human interaction, low occlusion percentage, and no screen swapping.

title: Performance Analysis of a Pull-Based Parallel Video Server
abstract: In conventional video-on-demand systems, video data are stored in a video server for delivery to multiple receivers over a communications network. The video server's hardware limits the maximum storage capacity as well as the maximum number of video sessions that can concurrently be delivered. Clearly, these limits will eventually be exceeded by the growing need for better video quality and larger user population. This paper studies a parallel video server architecture that exploits server parallelism to achieve incremental scalability. First, unlike data partition and replication, the architecture employs data striping at the server level to achieve fine-grain load balancing across multiple servers. Second, a client-pull service model is employed to eliminate the need for interserver synchronization. Third, an admission-scheduling algorithm is proposed to further control the instantaneous load at each server so that linear scalability can be achieved. This paper analyzes the performance of the architecture by deriving bounds for server service delay, client buffer requirement, prefetch delay, and scheduling delay. These performance metrics and design tradeoffs are further evaluated using numerical examples. Our results show that the proposed parallel video server architecture can be linearly scaled up to more concurrent users simply by adding more servers and redistributing the video data among the servers.

title: Multivariate Visualization with Data Fusion
abstract: We discuss a fusion-based visualization method to analyze a multivariate climate dataset and its metadata. The primary difference between a conventional visualization and a fusion-based visualization is that the former draws on a single image whereas the latter draws on multiple see-through layers, which are then overlaid on each other to form the final visualization. We propose optimized colormaps to highlight subtle features that would not be shown with conventional colormaps. We present fusion techniques that integrate multiple single-purpose visualization techniques into the same viewing space. Our highly flexible fusion approach allows scientists to explore multiple parameters concurrently by mixing and matching images without frequently reconstructing new visualizations from the data for every possible combination. Although our primary visualization application is climate modeling, we show with examples that our fundamental design - fusing layers of data images for multivariate visualization - can be generalized for other information visualization applications.

title: Dynamic visualization of transient data streams
abstract: We introduce two dynamic visualization techniques using multidimensional scaling to analyze transient data streams such as newswires and remote sensing imagery. While the time-sensitive nature of these data streams requires immediate attention in many applications, the unpredictable and unbounded characteristics of this information can potentially overwhelm many scaling algorithms that require a full re-computation for every update. We present an adaptive visualization technique based on data stratification to ingest stream information adaptively when influx rate exceeds processing rate. We also describe an incremental visualization technique based on data fusion to project new information directly onto a visualization subspace spanned by the singular vectors of the previously processed neighboring data. The ultimate goal is to leverage the value of legacy and new information and minimize re-processing of the entire dataset in full resolution. We demonstrate these dynamic visualization results using a newswire corpus and a remote sensing imagery sequence.

title: Towards a testing methodology for object-oriented systems