Real-time 3D visualization of DEM combined with a robust DCT based data-hiding method

Using aerial photography, satellite imagery, scanned maps and Digital Elevation Models implies to make storage and visualization strategy choices. To obtain a three dimensional visualization, we have to link these images called texture with the terrain geometry named Digital Elevation Model. These information are usually stored in three different files (One for the DEM, one for the texture and one for the geo-referenced coordinates). In this paper we propose to store these information in only one file. In order to solve this problem, we present a technique for color data hiding of images, based on DC components of the DCT-coefficients. In our application the images are the texture, and the elevation data are hidden in each block. This method mainly protects against JPEG compression and cropping.