The International Arab Journal of Information Technology (IAJIT)

..............................
..............................
..............................


A Robust Multiwavelet-Based Watermarking Scheme for Copyright Protection of Digital Images using Human Visual System

The contemporary period of information technology facilitates simple duplication, manipulation and distribution of digital data. This enduringly, has insisted the rightful ownership of digital images to be protected efficiently. For content owners and distributors, there emerged a necessary concern in regard to the content authentication of digital images as well as copyright protection. A latent solution to this issue is bestowed by digital watermarking. To certify efficient copyright protection, the watermarking scheme should own the characteristics, such as robustness and imperceptibility. Integration of Human Visual System (HVS) models with in the watermarking scheme helps to attain an effective copyright protection. Currently, wavelet domain based watermarking scheme mainly interested in watermarking researches. An undetectable and proficient wavelet-based watermarking scheme to safe guard the copyrights of images are portrayed here on contrary to the prior works. By effecting few modifications to our prior works, we have presented a new proficient watermarking scheme by incorporating the HVS models for watermark embedding. Additionally, we have applied the GHM multiwavelet transform in the watermarking process. Based on the computed distance using hausdorff distance measure, the image components for embedding are selected and a new procedure is designed for watermark embedding by multiplying the embedding strength with the random matrix that is generated by key image as a primary element and is engaged in both embedding and extraction processes. The correlation coefficient computation is used for extraction of watermark process. The experimental results illustrate the robustness and imperceptibility of the proposed approach. From the results, we can identify that the proposed watermarking process has achieved the correlation value of 0.9848 even if the watermarked image is affected by the Gaussian noise.

 


[1] Akhaee M., Sahraeian S., Sankur B., and Marvasti F., “Robust Scaling Based Image Watermarking using Maximum Likelihood Decoder with Optimum Strength Factor,” IEEE Transactions on Multimedia , vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 822-833, 2008.

[2] Canny J., “A Computational Approach to Edge Detection,” IEEE Transactions Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence , vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 679- 698, 1986.

[3] Colle F. and Gomez J., “DWT Based Digital Watermarking Fidelity and Robustness Evaluation,” Journal of Computer Science & Technology , vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 15-20, 2008.

[4] Deriche R., “Using Canny's Criteria to Derive a Recursively Implemented Optimal Edge Detector,” International Journal of Computer Vision , vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 167-187, 1987.

[5] Dubuisson M. and Jain A., “A Modified Hausdorff Distance for Object Matching,” in Proceedings of the 12th IAPR International Conference on Computer Vision and Image Processing, Jerusalem, pp. 566-568, 1994.

[6] Ellinas J. and Kenterlis P., “A Wavelet-Based Watermarking Method Exploiting the Contrast Sensitivity Function,” International Journal of Signal Processing , vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 266-272, 2006.

[7] Foriš P. and Levický D., “Implementations of HVS Models in Digital Image Watermarking,” Journal of Radio Engineering, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 45-50, 2007.

[8] Hsieh S., Tsai I., Huang B., and Jian J., “Protecting Copyrights of Color Images using a Watermarking Scheme Based on Secret Sharing and Wavelet Transform,” Journal of Multimedia, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 42-49, 2008. 534 The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 10, No. 6, November 2013    

[9] Hsu C. and Tu S., “An Imperceptible Watermarking Scheme using Variation and Modular Operations,” International Journal of Hybrid Information Technology , vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 233-237, 2008.

[10] Jehad A., “An Efficient Region-Based Approach for Object Recognition and Retrieval Based on Mathematical Morphology and Correlation Coefficient,” International Arab Journal of Information Technology , vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 154- 162, 2008.

[11] Jehad O., Ahmad H., Othman M., and Johari R., “Image Retrieval System Based on Density Slicing of Colour Histogram of Images Subareas and Colour Pair Segmentation,” International Arab Journal of Information Technology , vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 196-202, 2004.

[12] Jesorsky O., Kirchberg K., and Frischholz R., “Robust Face Detection using the Hausdorff Distance,” in Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Audio and Video-based Biometric Person Authentication , Sweden, pp. 90-95, 2001.

[13] Khaled M., Sekharjit D., and James F., “Frequency Domain Watermarking: An Overview,” International Arab Journal of Information Technology , vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 33-47, 2005.

[14] Kim Y. and Choi B., “Two-Step Detection Algorithm in a HVS-Based Blind Watermarking of Still Images,” in Proceedings of Lecturer Notes in Computer Science , Korea, vol. 2613, pp. 235-248, 2003.

[15] Kirchberg K., Jesorsky O., and Frischholz R., “Genetic Model Optimization for Hausdorff Distance-Based Face Localization,” in Proceedings of International ECCV Workshop on Biometric Authentication , Denmark, pp. 103- 111, 2002.

[16] Lu Z., Zheng W., Pan J., and Sun Z., “Multipurpose Image Watermarking Method Based on Mean-Removed Vector Quantization,” Journal of Information Assurance and Security, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 33-42, 2006.

[17] Maity S. and Kundu M., “An Image Watermarking Scheme using HVS Characteristics and Spread Transform,” in Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Pattern Recognition , India, vol. 4, pp. 869- 872, 2004.

[18] Mannos J. and Sakrison D., “The Effect of a Visual Criterion in the Encoding of Images,” IEEE Transaction on Information Theory, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 525-536, 1974.

[19] Mohanty S., Kougianos E., and Ranganathan N., “VLSI Architecture and Chip for Combined Invisible Robust and Fragile Watermarking,” Computers & Digital Techniques, vol. 1, no. 5, pp. 600-611, 2007.

[20] Nasser H., “Hiding Text Information in a Digital Image Based on Entropy Function,” International Arab Journal of Information Technology , vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 146-151, 2010.

[21] Padmanabhareddy V. and Varadarajan S., “Human Visual System Sentient Imperceptible and Efficient Wavelet-Based Watermarking Scheme for Copyright Protection of Digital Images,” International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security , vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 255-264, 2009.

[22] Padmanabhareddy V. and Varadarajan S., “An Effective Wavelet-Based Watermarking Scheme using Human Visual System for Protecting Copyrights of Digital Images,” International Journal of Computer and Electrical Engineering , vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 32-39, 2010.

[23] Picard R., Kabir T., and Liu F., “Real-Time Recognition with the Entire Brodatz Texture Database,” in Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition , USA, pp. 638-639, 1993.

[24] Qi X., “An Efficient Wavelet-Based Watermarking Algorithm,” in Proceedings of Hawaii International Conference on Computer Sciences , Hawaii, pp. 383-388, 2004.

[25] Radhakrishnan S. and Subramaniam J., “Novel Image Compression using Multiwavelets with SPECK Algorithm,” International Arab Journal of Information Technology , vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 45- 51, 2008.

[26] Rezazadeh S. and Yazdi M., “A Non-Oblivious Image Watermarking System Based on Singular Value Decomposition and Texture Segmentation,” International Journal of Applied Science, Engineering and Technology, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 142-146, 2006.

[27] Sakr N., Georganas N., and Zhao J., “Copyright Protection of Image Learning Objects using Wavelet-Based Watermarking and Fuzzy Logic,” in Proceedings of Intelligent Interactive Learning Object Repositories Conference , Canada, pp. 1-7, 2006.

[28] Sullivan J., Ray L., Miller R., “Design of Minimum Visual Modulation Halftone Patterns,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics , vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 33-38, 1991.

[29] Tian J., “Wavelet-Based Reversible Watermarking for Authentication,” in Proceedings of Security and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents IV , San Jose, vol. 4675, pp. 679-690, 2002.

[30] Tombras G., Salih S., and Mansour A., “Performance Study of MC-CDMA Based on Multiwavelet Transform,” MASAUM Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences , vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 271-274, 2009. A Robust Multiwavelet-Based Watermarking Scheme for Copyright Protection of Digital Images … 535

[31] Veeraswamy K., Srinivaskumar S., and Chatterji B., “Designing Quantization Table for Hadamard Transform Based on Human Visual System for Image Compression,” International Journal on Graphics, Vision and Image Processing , vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 31-38, 2007.

[32] Vleeschouwer C., Delaigle J., and Macq B., “Invisibility and Application Functionalities in Perceptual Watermarking an Overview,” in Proceedings of IEEE , vol. 90, no. 1, pp. 64-77, 2002.

[33] Vleeschouwer C., Delaigle J., and Macq B., “Invisibility and Application Functionalities in Perceptual Watermarking an Overview,” in Proceedings of IEEE , vol. 90, no. 1, pp. 64-77, 2002.

[34] Wolfgang R., Podilchuk C., and Delp E., “Perceptual Watermarks for Image and Video,” in Proceedings of IEEE , USA, vol. 87, no. 7, pp. 1108-1126, 1998.

[35] Yue Z., Qun N., and Wu H., “An Adaptive Image Watermarking Algorithm Based on HMM in Wavelet Domain,”  Acta Automatica Sinica, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 705-712, 2005.

[36] Zaboli S., Tabibiazar A., and Safabakhsh R., “Entropy-Based Image Watermarking using DWT and HVS,” in Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference: Sciences of Electronic, Technologies of Information and Telecommunications , Tunisia, pp. 1-6, 2005.

[37] Zhang X., Feng J., and Lo K., “Image Watermarking using Tree-Based Spatial- Frequency Feature of Wavelet Transform,” Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation , vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 474-491, 2003.

[38] Zolghadrashli A. and Rezazadesh S., “Evaluation of Spread Spectrum Watermarking Schemes in the Wavelet Domain using HVS Characteristics,” in Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Signal Processing and its Applications , Sharjah, vol. 5, pp. 1-4, 2007.