Embedding intensity image in grid-cross down-sampling (GCD) binary holograms based on block truncation coding

Past research has demonstrated that a three-dimensional (3D) intensity image can be preserved to a reasonable extent with a binary Fresnel hologram called the grid-cross down-sampling (GCD) binary hologram, if the intensity image is first down-sampled with a grid-cross lattice prior to the generation of the hologram. It has also been shown that the binary hologram generated with such means can be embedded with a binary image without causing observable artifact on the reconstructed image. Hence, the method can be further extended to embed an intensity image by binarizing it with error diffusion. Despite the favorable findings, the visual quality of the retrieved embedded intensity image from the hologram is rather poor. In this paper, we propose a method to overcome this problem. First, we employ the block truncation coding (BTC) to convert the intensity image into a binary bit stream. Next, the binary bit stream is embedded into the GCD binary hologram. The embedded image can be recovered with a BTC decoder, as well as a noise suppression scheme if the hologram is partially damaged. Experimental results demonstrate that with our proposed method, the visual quality of the embedded intensity image is superior to that of the existing approach, and the extracted image preserves favorably even if the binary hologram is damaged and contaminated with noise. © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.