Contrastcoderingsstructuur

Contrastcoderingsstructuur refers to the organizational framework used to encode visual contrast information within a coding system. In imaging and perception research, the term describes how different contrasts—luminance steps, edges, and chromatic differences—are represented in a compact form that preserves perceptual discriminability while reducing redundancy.

Typically realized through multiscale and multi-channel processing: separation into luminance and chrominance channels, a cascade of filters or receptive-field-like stages across spatial frequencies and orientations, followed by quantization and entropy coding. In models of human vision, the structure is designed to reflect the contrast sensitivity function, ensuring higher resolution where sensitivity is greater and coarser encoding where it is lower.

Applications include image and video compression, perceptual rendering, and neurocomputational modeling of vision. The structure influences encoder design, influencing quantization tables, bit allocation, and the perceived quality of artifacts. An example is a two-stage encoder with a coarse luminance ladder and a finer chrominance ladder, adapting to local contrast; or a log-contrast encoding scheme that mirrors Weber-Fechner-like scaling.

Relation to related concepts includes tone mapping, gamma correction, color spaces, edge representation, and the contrast sensitivity function. Notes: The term is not universally standardized and may be used differently in Danish-language sources; in English-language literature similar ideas are discussed under contrast encoding, perceptual coding, or multiscale representation.