An improved Sudoku-based data hiding scheme using greedy method. (22nd September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chang, Chin-Chen; Su, Guo-Dong; Lin, Chia-Chen
• Is Part Of: International journal of computational science and engineering. Volume 23:Number 1(2020)
• Page Start: 10
• Page End: 21
• Publication Date: 2020-09-22
• Subjects: data hiding -- Sudoku -- greedy method -- brute-force search method -- approximate optimal solution; Computer science -- Mathematics -- Periodicals; Computer simulation -- Mathematical aspects -- Periodicals; Computational intelligence -- Periodicals; 004.015105
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1742-7185

Abstract

Inspired by Chang et al.'s scheme, an improved Sudoku-based data hiding scheme is proposed here. The major idea of our improved scheme is to find the approximate optimal solution of Sudoku using the greedy method instead of via a brute-force search for an optimal solution. Later, the found approximate optimal solution of Sudoku is used to offer satisfactory visual stego-image quality with a lower execution time during the embedding procedure. Simulation results confirmed that the average stego-image quality is enhanced by around 90.51% compared to Hong et al.'s scheme, with relatively less execution time compared to a brute-force search method.