Secure Fractal Image Coding

In recent work, various fractal image coding methods are reported, which adopt the selfsimilarity of images to compress the size of images. However, till now, no solutions for the security of fractal encoded images have been provided. In this paper, a secure fractal image coding scheme is proposed and evaluated, which encrypts some of the fractal parameters during fractal encoding, and thus, produces the encrypted and encoded image. The encrypted image can only be recovered by the correct key. To keep secure and efficient, only the suitable parameters are selected and encrypted through investigating the properties of various fractal parameters, including parameter space, parameter distribution and parameter sensitivity. The encryption process does not change the file format, keeps secure in perception, and costs little time or computational resources. These properties make it suitable for secure image encoding or transmission.