Rotation invariant moments and transforms for geometrically invariant image watermarking

We present invariant image watermarking based on a recently introduced set of polar harmonic transforms and angular radial transforms and their comparative analysis with state-of-art approaches based on Zernike moments and pseudo-Zernike moments (ZMs/PZMs). Similar to ZMs/PZMs, these transforms provide rotation invariance and resilience to noise while mitigating inherent limitations like numerical instability and computational cost at high order of moments. These characteristics motivate us to design invariant transform-based invariant image watermarking schemes that can withstand various intentional or unintentional attacks, handle large bit-carriers, and work in a limited computing environment. A comparative performance evaluation of watermarking systems regarding critical parameters like visual imperceptibility, embedding capacity, and watermark robustness against geometric transformations, common signal processing distortions, and Stirmark attacks is performed along with the empirical analysis of various inherent properties of transforms and moments such as magnitude invariance, reconstruction capabilities, and computational complexity to investigate relationships between the performance of watermarking schemes and inherent properties of transforms. (C) 2013 SPIE and IS&T