International Journal of Information Technology (IJIT) Volume 3 Issue 2, Mar - Apr 2017

RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS

Ant Colony Optimization Technique used for Lossless Image

Compression
P. Ravi [1], A.Ashokkumar [2]
Research Scholar [1], Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Asst.Professor, Govt. Arts College for Women,
Ramanathapuram,
Assistant Professor [2], Dept. of Computer Science, Alagappa Government Arts College, Karaikudi
Tamilnadu, India.

ABSTRACT
Image compression is process to remove the redundant information from the image so that essential information can be stored to
reduce the storage size, transmission bandwidth and transmission time. The vital information is extracted by various transforms
techniques such that it can be reconstructed without losing quality and information of the image. Ant colony algorithm performs
much better than the standalone JPEG based DCT algorithms in terms of peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) as well as visual
perception at higher compression ratio. The popular JPEG standard is commonly used in digital cameras and web based image
delivery. Currently many image compression algorithms are used to deal with increasing amount of data involved but still
finding the alternative solution is the area of research. This paper provides an insight of Ant Colony Optimization techniques
used for lossless image compression. Ant Colony Optimization algorithm is enthused by the behavior among real ants while
searching for the food source.
Keywords:- DCT, Ant colony, JPEG,PSNR, Compression Ratio

I. INTRODUCTION compression ratio while maintaining good quality for the

Data compression is beneficial because it reduces the
consumption of expensive resources such bandwidth and
disk space. Image Compression is a technique which is
concerned with dropping the number of bits required to store
and transmit the image without appreciable loss of
information. Image compression given two types are lossy
and lossless. In lossy technique there is loss of information
and hence it is not possible to exactly recover the original
image. Because the quality of the image gets degraded and
compression ratio is high. In lossless technique without loss
of information and hence the original image can be exactly
reconstructed but the compression ratio is low.
image.
II. ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION
TECHNIQUE
Ant Colony Optimization(ACO) algorithm was
introduced by Marco Dorigo in 1992 to generate the suitable
solutions for discrete optimization problems, continuous
optimization problems and some real world problems like
Travelling Salesman problem, routing and load balancing. It
mimics the foraging behavior of real ant colonies.

Image compression is most necessary solution when the

images are transmitted over the internet or downloaded from
the web pages. JPEG is the most commonly used lossy
image compression technique based on Discrete Cosine
Transform (DCT). In the past few years many Meta-heuristic
Optimization algorithms have been used to compress the
images with minimal loss of information. There are three
types of Meta-heuristic Optimization algorithms such as
Physics based, Swarm Intelligence based and Evolutionary Fig 1. General construction of Ants from Nest to Food
based. Swarm intelligence based Meta-heuristic The Fig. 1 summarizes the following ACO simulates
Optimization algorithms are Ant Colony Optimization the foraging behavior of the artificial ants in which they
(ACO), Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA) and Bee Colony establish shortest path between the food source and the nest.
(BC) algorithm and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and whereas searching for the food source the ant randomly
Genetic Algorithm is Evolution based Meta-heuristic moves in the area neighboring its nest. While carrying the
algorithm. One important advantage of using the food source towards the nest they fall a chemical pheromone
Optimization technique is that is helps to increase the over the ground. Ants can smell pheromone and evaluate its
quantity. Therefore larger quantity of pheromone is

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 International Journal of Information Technology (IJIT) Volume 3 Issue 2, Mar - Apr 2017
concentrated on the shortest path and pheromone deposited
on the longest path begins to evaporate. The path chosen by
the ant contains large amount of pheromone concentration.
Therefore after acquiring the food source the ant leaves
pheromone trial based on the quality and quantity of the food
source. This pheromone trial helps other ants to find the
shortest path for the food source. The indirect exchange of
information through pheromone between the ants is known
as stigmergy.

III. ANT SYSTEM

In the AS algorithm, the evaporation occurs all over
the trail constructed by each ant. Also that pheromone is
deposited along the trail proportionally to the quality of the
corresponding solution. Ant System is as follows:
1. Initialized each ant colony IV. PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS
2. Initialized each ant
3. To make path
Performance of image compression is based on the two
4. To calculate path
factor are compression ratio and quality of compressed
5. To disappear pheromone in trails
image which is given by PSNR.
6. To put down pheromone on trails
7. End
A. Compression Ratio
8. End

The ACO meta-heuristic consists of a colony of artificial Compression ratio can be defined as ratio of the size of
ants with the characteristics to search good solutions to original image to the compressed image
CR =OI/CI
various optimization problems. Artificial ants have been
where, CR = Compression Ratio
motivated by the real ones although they can be enriched
with some capabilities which are not found in real ants. OI = Original Image, CI= Compressed Image
Some similarities with real ants are the existence of a colony
of cooperating individuals pheromone trail and stigmergy
and the task of finding the shortest path between the nest and
the source of food. There are two main differences are: (i)
artificial ants move from one discrete state to another (ii)
they have an internal memory of the search procedure.
Besides artificial ants deposit an amount of pheromone
which is a function of the quality of the solution found.
A. Proposed Work

Our proposed algorithm is a grouping of Discrete Cosine B. Mean Square Error (MSE) Is Defined
transform function, Ant colony Optimization Technique.
Now the steps of the algorithm are following:

N N
1
r,c andIr,c 2denote the I r,c image and restored
2
where IMSE I r ,coriginal
Step1. Apply input image on DCT transform N r 1 c N
image pixels respectively, 1 denotes number of pixels in the
function, it decomposed image into details row or column
and approximation beam.
Step 2 .Calculate the image size and Compute the C .Peak Signal to Noise Ratio
beam spread.
Step 3. Use the route of beam for pixel mapping and
perform Quantization using DCT. PSNR say about the quality of the image. It is estimate
Step 4. To Apply the compression with ACO based of peak error if we have high value of PSNR then the quality
encoding of DCT components. of image is high. PSNR can be calculated as:
Step 5. To Apply the decompression with ACO 255 2
PSNR 10 log 10
based decoding of DCT components MSE
Step 6 .Calculate in PSNR, MSE, CR values.

In the following diagram will solve the proposed algorithm.

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 International Journal of Information Technology (IJIT) Volume 3 Issue 2, Mar - Apr 2017
In future work, Ant colony optimization algorithm
can be implemented in the thresholding process to reduces
the number of different coefficient representing the image by
optimally choosing the thresholding value to get more better
compression and quality of image.

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 International Journal of Information Technology (IJIT) Volume 3 Issue 2, Mar - Apr 2017
[12] P.Ravi, Dr. A.Ashokkumar ,A study of various
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