Joint Source-channel Fractal Image Coding

We propose a joint source channel coding system for fractal image codes in which both a transmission bit rate allocation scheme and an unequal error protection strategy are considered. We express the total distortion in terms of the source distortion and the channel distortion. Then, we allocate the available total bit rate between the source code and a range of error-correcting codes using a Lagrange multiplier optimization technique. The principle of the proposed unequal error protection strategy is to partition the information bits into sensitivity classes and to assign one code from a range of error-correcting codes to each sensitivity class in a nearly optimal way. Experimental results show that joint source-channel coding with fractal image coding is feasible, leads to efficient protection strategies, and outperforms previous works in this field that only covered channel coding with a fixed source rate. Moreover, the unequal error protection is improved by our technique.