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International Journal of Emerging Trends & Technology in Computer Science (IJETTCS)

Web Site: www.ijettcs.org Email: editor@ijettcs.org


Volume 4, Issue 2, March-April 2015

ISSN 2278-6856

DCT Based Grey Scale Still Image


Watermarking Using 1-D Walsh Code and
Biometric Protection
B.P.Mishra1, Dr.H.N.Pratihari2, Dr.P.Das3
1
Research Scholar,
Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang
2
Calcutta Institute of Technology,
Banitabla, Uluberia, Howrah, Westbengal
3

Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang

Abstract
This paper presents a technique using one dimensional Walsh
coding to improve the robustness of watermarking in gray
scale digital still images. The proposed technique inserts bits
of binary biometric image in the DCT blocks of a digital
image. During the proposed method, the 1-D Walsh functions
are used to encode the fingerprint before being embedded in
the host image. The application of Walsh coding is made
using the horizontal 1-D Walsh coding. By utilizing this type
of coding, each row of the fingerprints vectors will be
replaced by its equivalent Walsh code where they will make a
queue horizontally to get the modulated signal. During the
decoding process, the original fingerprints bits are recognized
by the use of odd and even functions. The proposed technique
retains the image quality and produces robustness against
JPEG compression.

Keywords: Watermarking, Walsh Coding, DCT, Gray


Scale image, Fingerprint etc.

1. INTRODUCTION
In the form of watermark, copyright protection
information is embedded in the digital Image
Watermarking. By the presence of watermark, the host
image must be clear and there will be no sign of visibility
of watermark. It is now required to maintain the
robustness. Thus, the watermark must be authorized for
illegal detection. The watermark must be tolerant to image
processing techniques as well as to intentional attempts to
destroy the watermark like grey level modifications and
geometrical transformations.
In digital watermarking, the watermark can be inserted in
either the spatial or the transformed domain. The
transform domain watermarking schemes are typically
more robust to image manipulation compared to the
spatial domain schemes. In transform domain Discrete
Fourier Transform (DFT), Discrete Cosine Transform
(DCT), and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) are used.
Watermarks may also be classified as robust or fragile.
Robust watermarks are difficult to remove from the object
in which they are embedded despite of various attacks.
Fragile watermarks are easily destroyed by any attempt to
tamper them. Two types of watermarking techniques are

Volume 4, Issue 2, March April 2015

blind techniques where the original image is not required


and non-blind technique where the original images are
required for extraction of the watermark information. In
this paper a new technique is presented which will insert
the bits of the biometric authentication in the DCT blocks.
The paper consists of Walsh coding functions, DCT
watermarking technique using the low frequency bands,
experimental results and some conclusions.
1.1 Walsh Code
The Walsh code is a linear code which maps binary
strings of length n to binary code words of length
2n .
Further these codes are mutually orthogonal. Since Walsh
codes is a linear code, there exist a generator or a
transformation matrix for the same. The Walsh functions
consist of a series of square pulses that have either 1 or -1
condition. Each of these pulses has sequence that has the
same unit of time. The system of sine and cosine functions
are used mainly for the reason that Fourier series and
Fourier transform permits the representation. The Walsh
sequences are limited to code lengths of k=2n where n is
an integer. The Walsh sequences with code length k
enable k orthogonal codes to be obtained.
1.2 Watermarking
Watermarking is the embedding of some identifying
information into the content in such a way that it cannot
be removed by the user but can be extracted or read by the
appropriate party. Watermarks can be used for copyright
protection or for identification of the receiver. Copyright
protection watermarks embed some information in the
data to identify the copyright holder or content provider,
while receiver-identifying watermarking.
1.3 DCT
The DCT is similar to the discrete Fourier transform. It
transforms a signal or image from the spatial domain to
the (spatial) frequency domain. In other words, the DCT
transforms a signal from a spatial representation into a
frequency representation. In general, lower frequencies are
more dominant in an image than higher frequencies. If an
image is transformed into its frequency components and
some of the high frequency content discarded, it reduces
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International Journal of Emerging Trends & Technology in Computer Science (IJETTCS)


Web Site: www.ijettcs.org Email: editor@ijettcs.org
Volume 4, Issue 2, March-April 2015
the amount of data needed to describe the image without
sacrificing too much image quality.

ISSN 2278-6856

block and then taking the IDCT and constructing the


watermarked image.

2. NEW ALGORITHM FOR WATERMARKING


2.1 Walsh Coding of Fingerprint
The Walsh function is produced proportional to the value
of the length elements, while this length is in term of 2n
where n is an integer. In this method, the 1-D Walsh
functions is used to encode the fingerprint before being
embedded in the cover image by applying horizontally. By
utilizing this type of coding, each row of the fingerprints
vectors will be replaced by its equivalent Walsh code and
then placed to get the modulated signal. This process is
carried on all fingerprints pixels. An example of Walsh
function with length=4 are:
W1= [ +1 +1 +1 +1 ]
W2= [ +1 +1 -1 -1 ]

Figure 1 Embedding process of the 1D Walsh coded


fingerprint
2.3 Results of proposed embedding algorithm:
Several 512 X 512 gray scale images along with
fingerprint were used throughout this work to test the
various algorithms. Figure-5(a), 6(a) & 7(a) shows
samples of the test gray scale images that were used.

W3= [ +1 -1 -1 +1 ]
W4= [ +1 -1 +1 -1 ]
These methods are being implemented by taking the
fingerprints 64 binary bits and swap them with the Walsh
codes. The resulted Walsh coded would have 64X256 bits
of values: +1 and -1 only. The pixel value of the
fingerprint is changed from binary [0, 1] to integer values
in the range [-1, +1].
In this section original gray scale image is divided to 8X8
blocks by applying DCT. Then the watermark i.e
biometric image is converted into their equivalent 1-D
Walsh code to embed all and IDCT is applied to get
watermarked image. It is generalized to embed two
watermarks in the same image while retaining high image
quality.
2.2 Algorithm using DCT blocks
In this proposed method, the watermark is embedded in
DCT blocks by modifying the very low frequency band,
excluding the DC component. In the embedding process,
initially the fingerprint is encoded by using 1-D Walsh
code and then the encoded elements are inserted into the
DCT blocks coefficients of the host image. The 1D Walsh
encoded fingerprints elements are inserted into the DCT
block coefficients of the host image. This is done by
modifying the DCT coefficient value. First it is divided by
a scaling factor and then rounded to an integer:

Where P1 is the image original coefficient and P2 is the


modified coefficient. S is the scaling factor.
In this method DCT is applied to the image where the host
image is divided into (8x8) blocks. The embedding
process is achieved by placing the encoded bits (either +1
or -1) into the stated (odd or even) coefficient value of the

Volume 4, Issue 2, March April 2015

Figure 5(a), 6(a) & 7(a)- 512 X 512 Host gray scale
image

Figure 5(b), 6(b) & 7(b)- Watermarked image with scale


factor 4 and

Figure 5(c), 6(c) & 7(c)- Watermarked image with scale


factor 8.

3. EXTRACTION OF BIOMETRIC IMAGE


In the process of detection, first is to convert the
watermarked image into (8x8) blocks and applying the
DCT to it. The process of recovering the Walsh coded
fingerprint is by locating the odd and even values of the
watermarked coefficients. The modified coefficients are
located first and then each coefficient is divided by the
same scaling factor and rounded. If the value is odd then 1
is generated and if the value is even then 0 is generated.
The binary bits that are extracted from the block are
converted to decimal numbers. The same procedure is
repeated for other blocks and the Walsh coded fingerprint
is recovered. The fingerprint is recovered by multiplying
each vector by the Walsh sequences and integrating them.
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International Journal of Emerging Trends & Technology in Computer Science (IJETTCS)


Web Site: www.ijettcs.org Email: editor@ijettcs.org
Volume 4, Issue 2, March-April 2015
Figure 2 illustrates the process of extracting the
fingerprint. In the decoding process, it does not require
the host image to process. So it is blind.

Figure 2 Extraction process of the 1D Walsh coded


fingerprint

4. RESULT AND ANALYSIS


The proposed algorithm using Walsh length of 4 and 8
was evaluated for validation. The effect of changing the
value of the scaling factors on the perceptual invisibility
was studied using the PSNR and SSIM. The robustness of
algorithm against JPEG compression was studied. The
robustness of algorithm was also evaluated using the
StirMark tests.
4.1 Evaluation using Walsh Length 4
In this section, evaluation was made based on the
proposed algorithm with length of 4. The assessment of
perceptual invisibility of the watermarked image was done
by using the PSNR and SSIM. Different scaling factors
were selected to examine the perceptual invisibility of the
watermarked images with a Walsh length of 4.
Table 4.1 PSNR and SSIM with Walsh code 4.

Table 4.2 Lowest JPEG factors with Walsh 4.

Volume 4, Issue 2, March April 2015

ISSN 2278-6856

Table 4.3 StirMark attacks and their NC values with


Walsh 4.

The PSNR values lie between 42.64 dB and 55.93 dB. The
results show that increasing the value of scaling factor
will affect the quality of the watermarked image. From
Table 4.1 the values of the SSIM lie in the range 0.9747 to
0.9993. It is clear that the distortion caused by the new
watermarking scheme is invisible in all tested images. The
algorithm was tested against JPEG compression to
evaluate the robustness. Table 5.2 shows the lowest JPEG
quality below which the fingerprint image is not
recognizable as function of watermark strength. From
Table 4.2 the fingerprint can be recovered with a scaling
factor of 4 with JPEG quality > 92 in Cartoon image.
From the table it can be seen that the robustness is
improved each time the scaling factor is increased. The
fingerprint can be recovered with JPEG quality > 23 at a
scaling factor=20 as shown in Adya and Sony images. It is
worth mentioning that increasing the scaling factor above
a certain limit will affect the watermarked image quality.
The results show that the proposed algorithm is robust
against JPEG attack. The algorithm was also tested under
different attacks by using the StirMark standard
benchmark. The test was done on the standard image of
Adya with a scaling factor 20. Table 4.3 shows the
StirMark attacks and their NC values.
4.2 Evaluation using Walsh Length 8
The watermarking scheme was also tested using Walsh
length 8. Table 4.4 examines the quality of the
watermarked images using different values of scaling
factors and their respective PSNR values. The values of
scaling factors are 4, 12, 16 and 20, and the PSNR values
lie between 41.64 dB and 54.64 dB respectively. It is clear
that the distortion caused by the new watermarking
scheme is invisible in all images. The values of the SSIM
are in the range 0.9698 and 0.9996. Table 4.5 shows the
lowest JPEG quality below which the fingerprint is not
recognizable as function of the watermark strength. From
Table 4.5 the fingerprint can be recovered with a scaling
factor of 4 with JPEG quality > 91 in Cartoon image. The
fingerprint can be recovered with JPEG quality > 26 at a
scaling factor=20 as shown in Adya, Cartoon and Sony
images. It is concluded that the technique used is robust
against the JPEG attack. The similarity between the
original and the extracted fingerprint also was tested using
the NC measure, as shown in table 4.6.
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International Journal of Emerging Trends & Technology in Computer Science (IJETTCS)


Web Site: www.ijettcs.org Email: editor@ijettcs.org
Volume 4, Issue 2, March-April 2015
Table 4.4 PSNR and SSIM with Walsh code 8.

ISSN 2278-6856

5. CONCLUSION
A novel algorithm is obtained using one-dimensional
Walsh coding of four and eight Walsh lengths for
watermark embedding in the DCT domain of grey scale
images. The new algorithm was proposed to embed
biometric protection in the low frequency of the cover
image. The algorithm is robust against JPEG compression
and the common watermarking attacks of image
processing. Simulation results have shown that using
Walsh coding before embedding offers robustness against
attacks and improvement in the quality of the
watermarked image. In the presented algorithms the
effectiveness of using different scaling factors were
examined in related to robustness and invisibility. The
algorithms could not deal with rotation because the DCT
coefficients are very sensitive to the smallest rotation
angles. The distortion caused by the watermarking
algorithms is not visible and it was assessed using the
PSNR and SSIM. The algorithms were, however only
designed for grey level images.

Table 4.5 Lowest JPEG factors with Walsh 8.

References

Table 4.6 StirMark attacks and their NC values with


Walsh 8.

Volume 4, Issue 2, March April 2015

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International Journal of Emerging Trends & Technology in Computer Science (IJETTCS)


Web Site: www.ijettcs.org Email: editor@ijettcs.org
Volume 4, Issue 2, March-April 2015

ISSN 2278-6856

International Conference on Computer Systems and


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