Adaptive DE-based reversible steganographic technique using bilinear interpolation and simplified location map

Abstract

In this paper, an adaptive DE-based reversible steganographic scheme with bilinear interpolation and simplified location map is proposed. In traditional reversible difference expansion (DE) scheme, it suffers from two problems: the embeddable location is considered insufficient and the embedding payload control capability in single layer embedding is weak. For the first problem, the kernel of bilinear interpolation is applied to effectively improve the number of the embeddable location while the quality of the stego-image can be maintained at a good level. In addition, the proposed simplified location map is used for the existing adaptive embedding rule to improve the second problem where the secret data can be adaptively embedded and also the load of additional information can be reduced. The experimental results revealed that the proposed scheme presented better visual quality of the stego-image and carried larger embedding payload than some other revised DE schemes, such as Alattar's and Lee's schemes.