A Flexible Representation of Quantum Images for Polynomial Preparation, Image Compression, and Processing Operations

A Flexible Representation of Quantum Images (FRQI) is proposed to provide a representation for images on quantum computers in the form of a normalized state which captures information about colors and their corresponding positions in the images. A constructive polynomial preparation for the FRQI state from an initial state, an algorithm for quantum image compression (QIC), and processing operations for quantum images are combined to build the whole process for quantum image processing on FRQI. The simulation experiments on FRQI include storing, retrieving of images and a detection of a line in binary images by applying quantum Fourier transform as a processing operation. The compression ratios of QIC between groups of same color positions range from 68.75 to 90.63% on single digit images and 6.67–31.62% on the Lena image. The FRQI provides a foundation not only to express images but also to explore theoretical and practical aspects of image processing on quantum computers.