Fast Fractal Encoding Algorithms Using Variance

A fast fractal encoding algorithm based on the variance of image blocks is proposed to reduce coding time．The number of domain blocks searched to find the best match for each range block is significantly reduced by eliminating the ineligible domain blocks and looking for the current minimum distortion and variance difference between the candidate domain block and range block．The algorithm produces in reduced time a completely identical fractal code to that of the conventional full search．