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Reversible data hiding in adjacent zeros

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Abstract

Data hiding techniques are used to embed information into digital objects for the purpose of copyright protection, covert communication, media notation, among other applications. Compared with traditional data hiding techniques, reversible data hiding (RDH) can restore the original digital object after extracting the hidden data. This makes RDH very useful for applications requiring high fidelity of multimedia content, such as medical records, remote sensing, and military aerial intelligence gathering. In this paper, we describe an efficient reversible data hiding algorithm that can be applied to standard and medical images, with better results expected for medical images. The algorithm is simple, blind, and offers a relatively large embedding capacity while keeping low visual distortions. In addition, it can be extended to multiple layers embedding with an acceptable visual quality. The main idea on which the proposed algorithm is based is to scan the image for pixels that have adjacent zeros at predefined positions in their binary representation. These pixels will be marked and chosen to embed the bits of a given watermark in the positions of the predefined adjacent zeros found in the selected pixels. The proposed algorithm has been successfully applied to a wide range of medical and standard images. Experimental results demonstrate the ability of the proposed algorithm to achieve high embedding capacity and high image quality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Engineering, The King Abdullah II School of Engineering, Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Al-Jubeiha, P.O.BOX 1438, Amman, 11941, Jordan

    Heba Abdel-Nabi & Ali Al-Haj

Authors
  1. Heba Abdel-Nabi
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  2. Ali Al-Haj
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Correspondence to Ali Al-Haj.

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Communicated by Y.A. Zhang.

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Abdel-Nabi, H., Al-Haj, A. Reversible data hiding in adjacent zeros. Multimedia Systems 27, 229–245 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00530-020-00732-y

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