Sensor-layer image compression based on the quantized cosine transform

We introduce a novel approach for compressive coding at the sensor layer for an integrated imaging system. Compression at the physical layer reduces the measurements-to-pixels ratio and the data volume for storage and transmission, without confounding image estimation or analysis. We introduce a particular compressive coding scheme based on the quantized Cosine transform (QCT) and the corresponding image reconstruction scheme. The QCT is restricted on the ternary set {-1, 0, 1} for economic implementation with a focal plane optical pixel mask. Combined with the reconstruction scheme, the QCT-based coding is shown favorable over existing coding schemes from the coded aperture literature, in terms of both reconstruction quality and photon efficiency.