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ABSTRACT
There is a growing need for people to browse through files of images, such as satellite or medical photos, in order to determine which ones warrant further examination. Users located at some distance from the image archive often use slow transmission links such as telephone lines, therefore, if an image is scanned out line-by-line, top-to-bottom, the user often wait too long to determine whether the image is of any use. Using the progressive transmission method, images are encoded so that during transmission the entire display shows a rough version of the image, if the user wishes to see more detail, additional data is sent and used to refine these pixels, until the exact original image is seen. This thesis proposes a method for Progressive Image Transmission (PIT) that is used to view large scale images over a network of limited bandwidths. This method is a hybrid between progressive JPEG compression technique, and quadtree algorithm, the image is partitioned and compressed into different scans or resolutions, the first scan shows the image at a very low quality setting, and therefore it takes very little space. Following scans gradually improve the quality. Each scan adds to the data already provided then transmitted progressively. The observer can determine the outlines of the image from the first look, and then decide if it is the required image and wait until full transmission, or escape it, and that save the time and accelerate the transmission. The main purpose of this thesis is to propose a hybrid technique that combines wavelet and quadtree coding. In particular, it is proposed to use the quadtree predictive approach to encode the base coefficients produced by wavelet decomposition. The most significant advantage is

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that the resulting quadtree segmentation of the base coefficients, can be used to guide the coding of detailed coefficients. Specifically, small blocks in the segmentation are an indication of a higher detail in the original image. As a result their descendants in detailed coefficients are likely to be important. Thus, our approach is to encode small blocks in the segmented base coefficients first, then large blocks. The performance of the presented system is demonstrated by holding two comparisons. First, it is compared with its components. These two components that it is derived from them; which are Progressive JPEG, and bottom-up quadtree, and the algorithm proved its efficiency. The observer can easily recognize the image from the first scan, while the image is opaque in the first scan in the other two algorithms. Then, the proposed system is compared with other two systems, which are standard quadtree encoding, and IPLIT (Interactive Progressive Local Image Transmission System), which is presented by the Canadian researcher Tiffany-Emil Lpitay, and also it proved its efficiency in comparison with them. In conclusion, Our method gathered the advantages of progressive JPEG, and quadtree algorithms, so the observer can easily recognize the image from the first scan and that saves a lot of time. The system performs well with images of rich details, however its performance still comparative with images of large and similar background. Key Words: Progressive Image Transmission (PIT) Quadtree (QT) - Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) - Interactive Progressive Local Image Transmission System (IPLIT).