A Novel Zero-Watermarking Algorithm Based on Texture Complexity Analysis

Aiming at the problem of existing watermarking algorithms cannot effectively resist complex attacks, a novel zero-watermarking algorithm based on texture complexity analysis is proposed. First, we calculate the standard deviation map of the host image by the spatially selective texture method and achieve the optimal target regions (OTRs) by clustering the binary standard deviation map. To improve the robustness of the proposed algorithm, we use singular value decomposition (SVD) to extract multiple feature sequences from the OTRs. Then, these robust feature sequences are binarized to generate multiple feature images. For the watermark image, we apply the chaotic mapping to encrypt it and ensure the security of the watermark image. Finally, we perform an exclusive-or (XOR) operation on each of the extracted multiple feature images with the encrypted watermark image to construct multiple zero watermarks, which will be saved at the Copyright Certification Center to protect the copyright of the image. A large number of experimental results show that the newly-proposed algorithm not only has good distinguishability, but also has high robustness to complex attacks. Compared with existing watermarking algorithms, our proposed algorithm has advantages in invisibility, robustness and security.