Analysis of the compression ratio and quality in aerial images

Abstract

In modern photomap systems, images are stored in centralized storage. Choosing a proper compression format for the storage of an aerial image is an important problem. This paper analyses aerial image compression in popular compression formats. For the comparison of compression formats, an image quality evaluation algorithm based on the calculation of the mean exponent error value is proposed. An image quality evaluation experiment is presented. The distribution of errors in aerial images and explanation of the causes for worse than usual compression effect are analysed. An integrated solution for the aerial image compression problem is proposed and the compression format most suitable for aerial images is specified.

First published online: 14 Oct 2010