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At least 109 records · Page 6

A fixed/variable bit-rate data compression architecture

A VLSI architecture for an adaptive data compression encoder capable of sustaining fixed or variable bit-rate output has been developed. There are three modes of operation: lossless with variable bit-rate, lossy with fixed bit-rate and lossy with variable bit-rate. For lossless encoding, the implementation is identical to the USES chip designed for Landsat 7. Obtaining a fixed bit-rate is achieved with a lossy DPCM algorithm using adaptive, nonuniform scalar quantization. In lossy mode, variable bit-rate coding uses the lossless sections of the encoder for post-DPCM entropy coding. The encoder shows excellent compression performance in comparison to other current data compression techniques. No external tables or memory are required for operation.

Zweigle, Gregary C.↗

Transferring Knowledge from Observations and Models to Decision Makers: An Overview and Challenges

Over the last 25 years, a tremendous progress has been made in the Earth science space-based remote sensing observations, technologies and algorithms. Such advancements have improved the predictability by providing lead-time and accuracy of forecast in weather, climate, natural hazards, and natural resources. It has further reduced or bounded the overall uncertainties by partially improving our understanding of planet Earth as an integrated system that is governed by non-linear and chaotic behavior. Many countries such US, European Community, Japan, China and others have invested billions of dollars in developing and launching space-based assets in the low earth (LEO) and geostationary (GEO) orbits. However, the wealth of this scientific knowledge that has potential of extracting monumental socio-economic benefits from such large investments have been slow in reaching to public and decision makers. For instance, there are a number of areas such as energy forecasting, aviation safety, agricultural competitiveness, disaster management, security, air quality and public health can directly take advantage. Nevertheless, we all live in a global economy that depends on access to the best available Earth Science information for all inhabitants of this planet. This paper surveys and examines a number such applications in terms of their architecture, maturity and economic applicability as they apply to the societal needs. A detailed analysis is also presented of various challenges and issues that pertain to a number of areas such as: (1) difficulties in making a speedy transition of data and information from observations and models to relevant Decision Support Systems (DSS) or tools, (2) data and models inter-operability issues, (3) limitations of spatial, spectral and temporal resolution, (4) communication limitations as dictated by the availability of image processing and data compression techniques. Additionally, the most critical element amongst all is the organizational and management boundaries that must be resolved at local, state, national and international levels to implement and realize free flow of such vital information. This paper also makes attempts to address this topic and discuss possible approaches to deal with this quandary.

Habib, Shahid↗

Utilizing Earth Observations for Societal Issues

Over the last four decades a tremendous progress has been made in the Earth science space-based remote sensing observations, technologies and algorithms. Such advancements have improved the predictability by providing lead-time and accuracy of forecast in weather, climate, natural hazards, and natural resources. It has further reduced or bounded the overall uncertainties by partially improving our understanding of planet Earth as an integrated system that is governed by non-linear and chaotic behavior. Many countries such as the US, European Community, Japan, China, Russia, India has and others have invested billions of dollars in developing and launching space-based assets in the low earth (LEO) and geostationary (GEO) orbits. However, the wealth of this scientific knowledge that has potential of extracting monumental socio-economic benefits from such large investments have been slow in reaching the public and decision makers. For instance, there are a number of areas such as water resources and availability, energy forecasting, aviation safety, agricultural competitiveness, disaster management, air quality and public health, which can directly take advantage. Nevertheless, we all live in a global economy that depends on access to the best available Earth Science information for all inhabitants of this planet. This presentation discusses a process to transition Earth science data and products for societal needs including NASA's experience in achieving such objectives. It is important to mention that there are many challenges and issues that pertain to a number of areas such as: (1) difficulties in making a speedy transition of data and information from observations and models to relevant Decision Support Systems (DSS) or tools, (2) data and models inter-operability issues, (3) limitations of spatial, spectral and temporal resolution, (4) communication limitations as dictated by the availability of image processing and data compression techniques. Additionally, the most critical element amongst all is the organizational and management boundaries that must be resolved at local, state, national and international levels to implement and realize free flow of such vital information.

Habib, Shahid↗

A very efficient RCS data compression and reconstruction technique, volume 4

A very efficient compression and reconstruction scheme for RCS measurement data was developed. The compression is done by isolating the scattering mechanisms on the target and recording their individual responses in the frequency and azimuth scans, respectively. The reconstruction, which is an inverse process of the compression, is granted by the sampling theorem. Two sets of data, the corner reflectors and the F-117 fighter model, were processed and the results were shown to be convincing. The compression ratio can be as large as several hundred, depending on the target's geometry and scattering characteristics.

Tseng, N. Y.↗

A comparison of spectral decorrelation techniques and performance evaluation metrics for a wavelet-based, multispectral data compression algorithm

Future space-based, remote sensing systems will have data transmission requirements that exceed available downlinks necessitating the use of lossy compression techniques for multispectral data. In this paper, we describe several algorithms for lossy compression of multispectral data which combine spectral decorrelation techniques with an adaptive, wavelet-based, image compression algorithm to exploit both spectral and spatial correlation. We compare the performance of several different spectral decorrelation techniques including wavelet transformation in the spectral dimension. The performance of each technique is evaluated at compression ratios ranging from 4:1 to 16:1. Performance measures used are visual examination, conventional distortion measures, and multispectral classification results. We also introduce a family of distortion metrics that are designed to quantify and predict the effect of compression artifacts on multi spectral classification of the reconstructed data.

Matic, Roy M.↗

New techniques for reversible compression of multispectral data

While spatial correlations are adequately exploited by standard lossless image compression techniques, little success has been attained in exploiting spectral correlations when dealing with multispectral image data. In this paper, we present some new lossless image compression techniques that capture spectral correlations as well as spatial correlation in a simple and elegant manner. The schemes are based on the notion of a prediction tree, which defines a non-causal prediction model for an image. We present a backward adaptive technique and a forward adaptive technique. We then give a computationally efficient way of approximating the backward adaptive technique. The approximation gives good results and is extremely easy to compute. Simulation results show that for high spectral resolution images, significant savings can be made by using spectral correlations in addition to spatial correlations. Furthermore, the increase in complexity incurred in order to make these gains is minimal.

Memon, N. D.↗

Planning/scheduling techniques for VQ-based image compression

The enormous size of the data holding and the complexity of the information system resulting from the EOS system pose several challenges to computer scientists, one of which is data archival and dissemination. More than ninety percent of the data holdings of NASA is in the form of images which will be accessed by users across the computer networks. Accessing the image data in its full resolution creates data traffic problems. Image browsing using a lossy compression reduces this data traffic, as well as storage by factor of 30-40. Of the several image compression techniques, VQ is most appropriate for this application since the decompression of the VQ compressed images is a table lookup process which makes minimal additional demands on the user's computational resources. Lossy compression of image data needs expert level knowledge in general and is not straightforward to use. This is especially true in the case of VQ. It involves the selection of appropriate codebooks for a given data set and vector dimensions for each compression ratio, etc. A planning and scheduling system is described for using the VQ compression technique in the data access and ingest of raw satellite data.

Short, Nicholas M., Jr.↗

Real-time transmission of digital video using variable-length coding

Huffman coding is a variable-length lossless compression technique where data with a high probability of occurrence is represented with short codewords, while 'not-so-likely' data is assigned longer codewords. Compression is achieved when the high-probability levels occur so frequently that their benefit outweighs any penalty paid when a less likely input occurs. One instance where Huffman coding is extremely effective occurs when data is highly predictable and differential coding can be applied (as with a digital video signal). For that reason, it is desirable to apply this compression technique to digital video transmission; however, special care must be taken in order to implement a communication protocol utilizing Huffman coding. This paper addresses several of the issues relating to the real-time transmission of Huffman-coded digital video over a constant-rate serial channel. Topics discussed include data rate conversion (from variable to a fixed rate), efficient data buffering, channel coding, recovery from communication errors, decoder synchronization, and decoder architectures. A description of the hardware developed to execute Huffman coding and serial transmission is also included. Although this paper focuses on matters relating to Huffman-coded digital video, the techniques discussed can easily be generalized for a variety of applications which require transmission of variable-length data.

Bizon, Thomas P.↗

Application of Compressive Sensing for Gravitational Microlensing Events

Compressive sensing is a novel mathematical technique for simultaneous data acquisition and compression. This technique is particularly apt for time-series photometric measurements. In this work we apply compressive sensing to time-series photometric measurements specifically obtained due to gravitational microlensing events. We show through simulation modelling the error sensitivity for detecting microlensing event parameters. Particularly, we show the relation of the amount of error and its impact on the microlensing parameters of interest. We derive statistical error bounds to apply those as a baseline for analyzing the effectiveness of compressive sensing application. Our results conclude that for single and binary microlensing events we can obtain error less than 1% over a 3-pixel radius of the center of the microlensing star by using 25% Nyquist rate measurements.

Compressive Sensing↗

An adaptive technique to maximize lossless image data compression of satellite images

Data compression will pay an increasingly important role in the storage and transmission of image data within NASA science programs as the Earth Observing System comes into operation. It is important that the science data be preserved at the fidelity the instrument and the satellite communication systems were designed to produce. Lossless compression must therefore be applied, at least, to archive the processed instrument data. In this paper, we present an analysis of the performance of lossless compression techniques and develop an adaptive approach which applied image remapping, feature-based image segmentation to determine regions of similar entropy and high-order arithmetic coding to obtain significant improvements over the use of conventional compression techniques alone. Image remapping is used to transform the original image into a lower entropy state. Several techniques were tested on satellite images including differential pulse code modulation, bi-linear interpolation, and block-based linear predictive coding. The results of these experiments are discussed and trade-offs between computation requirements and entropy reductions are used to identify the optimum approach for a variety of satellite images. Further entropy reduction can be achieved by segmenting the image based on local entropy properties then applying a coding technique which maximizes compression for the region. Experimental results are presented showing the effect of different coding techniques for regions of different entropy. A rule-base is developed through which the technique giving the best compression is selected. The paper concludes that maximum compression can be achieved cost effectively and at acceptable performance rates with a combination of techniques which are selected based on image contextual information.

Stewart, Robert J.↗

Some Practical Universal Noiseless Coding Techniques

Report discusses noiseless data-compression-coding algorithms, performance characteristics and practical consideration in implementation of algorithms in coding modules composed of very-large-scale integrated circuits. Report also has value as tutorial document on data-compression-coding concepts. Coding techniques and concepts in question "universal" in sense that, in principle, applicable to streams of data from variety of sources. However, discussion oriented toward compression of high-rate data generated by spaceborne sensors for lower-rate transmission back to earth.

Rice, Robert F.↗

Digital TV processing system

Two digital video data compression systems directly applicable to the Space Shuttle TV Communication System were described: (1) For the uplink, a low rate monochrome data compressor is used. The compression is achieved by using a motion detection technique in the Hadamard domain. To transform the variable source rate into a fixed rate, an adaptive rate buffer is provided. (2) For the downlink, a color data compressor is considered. The compression is achieved first by intra-color transformation of the original signal vector, into a vector which has lower information entropy. Then two-dimensional data compression techniques are applied to the Hadamard transformed components of this last vector. Mathematical models and data reliability analyses were also provided for the above video data compression techniques transmitted over a channel encoded Gaussian channel. It was shown that substantial gains can be achieved by the combination of video source and channel coding.

Source record↗

Study of on-board compression of earth resources data

The current literature on image bandwidth compression was surveyed and those methods relevant to compression of multispectral imagery were selected. Typical satellite multispectral data was then analyzed statistically and the results used to select a smaller set of candidate bandwidth compression techniques particularly relevant to earth resources data. These were compared using both theoretical analysis and simulation, under various criteria of optimality such as mean square error (MSE), signal-to-noise ratio, classification accuracy, and computational complexity. By concatenating some of the most promising techniques, three multispectral data compression systems were synthesized which appear well suited to current and future NASA earth resources applications. The performance of these three recommended systems was then examined in detail by all of the above criteria. Finally, merits and deficiencies were summarized and a number of recommendations for future NASA activities in data compression proposed.

Habibi, A.↗

Radiometric resolution enhancement by lossy compression as compared to truncation followed by lossless compression

Recent advances in imaging technology make it possible to obtain imagery data of the Earth at high spatial, spectral and radiometric resolutions from Earth orbiting satellites. The rate at which the data is collected from these satellites can far exceed the channel capacity of the data downlink. Reducing the data rate to within the channel capacity can often require painful trade-offs in which certain scientific returns are sacrificed for the sake of others. In this paper we model the radiometric version of this form of lossy compression by dropping a specified number of least significant bits from each data pixel and compressing the remaining bits using an appropriate lossless compression technique. We call this approach 'truncation followed by lossless compression' or TLLC. We compare the TLLC approach with applying a lossy compression technique to the data for reducing the data rate to the channel capacity, and demonstrate that each of three different lossy compression techniques (JPEG/DCT, VQ and Model-Based VQ) give a better effective radiometric resolution than TLLC for a given channel rate.

Tilton, James C.↗

Joint pattern recognition/data compression concept for ERTS multispectral imaging

This paper describes a new technique which jointly applies clustering and source encoding concepts to obtain data compression. The cluster compression technique basically uses clustering to extract features from the measurement data set which are used to describe characteristics of the entire data set. In addition, the features may be used to approximate each individual measurement vector by forming a sequence of scalar numbers which define each measurement vector in terms of the cluster features. This sequence, called the feature map, is then efficiently represented by using source encoding concepts. A description of a practical cluster compression algorithm is given and experimental results are presented to show trade-offs and characteristics of various implementations. Examples are provided which demonstrate the application of cluster compression to multispectral image data of the Earth Resources Technology Satellite.

Hilbert, E. E.↗

Weather data dissemination to aircraft

Documentation exists that shows weather to be responsible for approximately 40 percent of all general aviation accidents with fatalities. Weather data products available on the ground are becoming more sophisticated and greater in number. Although many of these data are critical to aircraft safety, they currently must be transmitted verbally to the aircraft. This process is labor intensive and provides a low rate of information transfer. Consequently, the pilot is often forced to make life-critical decisions based on incomplete and outdated information. Automated transmission of weather data from the ground to the aircraft can provide the aircrew with accurate data in near-real time. The current National Airspace System Plan calls for such an uplink capability to be provided by the Mode S Beacon System data link. Although this system has a very advanced data link capability, it will not be capable of providing adequate weather data to all airspace users in its planned configuration. This paper delineates some of the important weather data uplink system requirements, and describes a system which is capable of meeting these requirements. The proposed system utilizes a run-length coding technique for image data compression and a hybrid phase and amplitude modulation technique for the transmission of both voice and weather data on existing aeronautical Very High Frequency (VHF) voice communication channels.

Mcfarland, Richard H.↗