Recursive code construction for reversible data hiding in DCT domain

Reversible data hiding has extensive applications in fields like data authentication, medical data management and error concealment. In this paper, we formulate the model of reversible data hiding over a special ternary cover that is suitable for any transform domain, such as DCT domain, where the probability density function of the transformed coefficients has a Laplacian distribution with a small variance. After deriving rate-distortion function for this model, we propose a code construction that can approach the rate-distortion bound. Based on the code construction, a reversible data hiding method for JPEG images is proposed. Experimental results demonstrate that proposed method has a good balance among image quality, filesize increment and computation time. The excellent performance of proposed method also demonstrate the power of our code construction for reversible data hiding on DCT based media.