Vítor A. Coutinho

V. A. Coutinho, R. J. Cintra, F. M. Bayer

In this paper, we introduce low-complexity multidimensional discrete cosine transform (DCT) approximations. Three dimensional DCT (3D DCT) approximations are formalized in terms of high-order tensor theory. The formulation is extended to higher dimensions with arbitrary lengths. Several multiplierless $8\times 8\times 8$ approximate methods are proposed and the computational complexity is discussed for the general multidimensional case. The proposed methods complexity cost was assessed, presenting considerably lower arithmetic operations when compared with the exact 3D DCT. The proposed approximations were embedded into 3D DCT-based video coding scheme and a modified quantization step was introduced. The simulation results showed that the approximate 3D DCT coding methods offer almost identical output visual quality when compared with exact 3D DCT scheme. The proposed 3D approximations were also employed as a tool for visual tracking. The approximate 3D DCT-based proposed system performs similarly to the original exact 3D DCT-based method. In general, the suggested methods showed competitive performance at a considerably lower computational cost.

R. J. Cintra, F. M. Bayer, V. A. Coutinho et al.

Due to its remarkable energy compaction properties, the discrete cosine transform (DCT) is employed in a multitude of compression standards, such as JPEG and H.265/HEVC. Several low-complexity integer approximations for the DCT have been proposed for both 1-D and 2-D signal analysis. The increasing demand for low-complexity, energy efficient methods require algorithms with even lower computational costs. In this paper, new 8-point DCT approximations with very low arithmetic complexity are presented. The new transforms are proposed based on pruning state-of-the-art DCT approximations. The proposed algorithms were assessed in terms of arithmetic complexity, energy retention capability, and image compression performance. In addition, a metric combining performance and computational complexity measures was proposed. Results showed good performance and extremely low computational complexity. Introduced algorithms were mapped into systolic-array digital architectures and physically realized as digital prototype circuits using FPGA technology and mapped to 45nm CMOS technology. All hardware-related metrics showed low resource consumption of the proposed pruned approximate transforms. The best proposed transform according to the introduced metric presents a reduction in power consumption of 21--25%.

V. A. Coutinho, R. J. Cintra, F. M. Bayer et al.

A multiplierless pruned approximate 8-point discrete cosine transform (DCT) requiring only 10 additions is introduced. The proposed algorithm was assessed in image and video compression, showing competitive performance with state-of-the-art methods. Digital implementation in 45 nm CMOS technology up to place-and-route level indicates clock speed of 288 MHz at a 1.1 V supply. The 8x8 block rate is 36 MHz.The DCT approximation was embedded into HEVC reference software; resulting video frames, at up to 327 Hz for 8-bit RGB HEVC, presented negligible image degradation.