Q 19,paper 3, J 12. The quantiser in an image-compression system is a

Option (A) lossy element which exploits the psychovisual redundancy
(B) lossless element which exploits the psychovisual redundancy
(C) lossy element which exploits the statistical redundancy
(D) lossless element which exploits the statistical redundancy
Answer(A) Lossy element which exploits the psycho visual redundancy.
Explanation. Quantization, involved in image processing, is a lossy compression technique achieved by compressing a range of values to a single quantum value. When the number of discrete symbols in a given stream is reduced, the stream becomes more compressible. For example, reducing the number of colors required to represent a digital image makes it possible to reduce its file size.The human eye is fairly good at seeing small differences in brightness over a relatively large area, but not so good at distinguishing the exact strength of a high frequency (rapidly varying) brightness variation. This fact allows one to reduce the amount of information required by ignoring the high frequency components. This is done by simply dividing each component in the frequency domain by a constant for that component, and then rounding to the nearest integer. This is the main lossy operation in the whole process. As a result of this, it is typically the case that many of the higher frequency components are rounded to zero, and many of the rest become small positive or negative numbers.