Efficiency of chain codes to represent binary objects

We present a study of compression efficiency for binary objects or bi-level images for different chain-code schemes. Chain-code techniques are used for compression of bi-level images because they preserve information and allow a considerable data reduction. Furthermore, chain codes are the standard input format for numerous shape-analysis algorithms. In this work we apply chain codes to represent object with holes and we compare their compression efficiency for seven chain codes. We have also compared all these chain codes with the JBIG standard for bi-level images.