Abstract
This paper addresses a geometrically invariant watermarking method for digital images. Most previous watermarking algorithms perform weakly against geometric distortions, which desynchronize the location for the inserted watermark. Watermark synchronization, which is a process for finding the location for watermark insertion and detection, is crucial for robust watermarking. In this paper, we propose a watermarking method that is robust to geometric distortions. In order to synchronize the location for watermark insertion and detection, we use circular Hough transform, which extracts circular features that are invariant to geometric distortions. The circular features are then watermarked using additive way on the spatial domain. Our method belongs to the category of blind watermarking techniques, because we do not need the original image during detection. Experimental results support the contention that our method is useful and considerably robust against both geometric distortion attacks and signal processing attacks as listed in Stirmark 3.1.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arghoniemy M, Twefik AH (2004) Geometric invariance in image watermarking. IEEE Trans Image Process 13:145–153
Bas P, Chassery J-M, Macq B (2002) Geometrically invariant watermarking using feature points. IEEE Trans Image Process 11(9):1014–1028
Cox IJ, Kilian J, Shamoon T (1997) Secure spread spectrum watermarking for multimedia. IEEE Trans Image Process 6(12):1673–1678
Cox IJ, Miller ML, Bloom JA (2002) Digital watermarking, chap. 5. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA
Kutter M (1998) Watermarking resisting to translation, rotation and scaling. Proc SPIE 3528:423–431
Kutter M, Bhattacharjee SK, Ebrahimi T (1999) Toward second generation watermarking schemes. In: Proc. of International Conference on Image Processing, vol. 1, pp 320–323
Lin C-Y, Cox IJ (2001) Rotation, scale and translation resilient watermarking for images. IEEE Trans Image Process 10:767–782
Lin ET, Delp EJ (2004) Spatial synchronization using watermark key structure. Proc SPIE 5306:536–547
Nikolaidis A, Pitas I (2001) Region-based image watermarking. IEEE Trans Image Process 10(11):1726–1740
Pereira S, Pun T (2000) Robust template matching for affine resistant image watermark. IEEE Trans Image Process 9:1123–1129
O’Ruanaidh JJK, Pun T (1998) Rotation, scale and translation invariant spread spectrum digital image watermarking. Signal Process 66:303–317
Simitopoulos D, Koutsonanos DE, Strintzis MG (2003) Robust image watermarking based on generalized radon transformation. IEEE Trans Circuits Syst Video Technol 13:732–745
Tang C-W, Hang H-M (2003) A feature-based robust digital image watermarking scheme. IEEE Trans Signal Process 51(4):950–959
Voloshynovskiy S, Herrigel A, Baumgartner N, Pun T (1999) A stochastic approach to content adaptive digital image watermarking. In: Proc. of International Workshop on Information Hiding, pp 212–236
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lee, HY., Lee, Ch. & Lee, HK. Geometrically invariant watermarking: synchronization through circular Hough transform. Multimed Tools Appl 34, 337–353 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-007-0112-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-007-0112-0