We present a simple and efficient scheme for protecting a region of interest (ROI) in an image sent across lossy communication networks. To increase the probability that the ROI is received with high quality, we extend the unequal loss protection framework of MD-SPIHT by adding more redundancy to the ROI than to other parts of the image. The ROI is therefore heavily protected at the expense of lower protection in the background. In addition, the ROI is coded to a higher bit rate than the rest of the image. This method can be used for packet erasure networks or in the generalized multiple description coding framework.

We present a simple and efficient scheme for using the Set Partitioning in Hierarchical Trees (SPIHT) image compression algorithm in a generalized multiple description framework. To combat packet loss, controlled amounts of redundancy are added to the original data during the compression process. Unequal loss protection is implemented by varying the amount of redundancy with the importance of data. The algorithm achieves graceful degradation of image quality in the presence of increasing description loss; high image quality is obtained even when over half of the descriptions are lost.