The invention provides a fractal
image compression method based on the combination of a quad tree and neighborhood searching. The method comprises the following steps of: setting the maximum and minimum depths of the quad tree and an error threshold value; dividing an image into value region blocks according to the minimum depth; extracting a value region block to be matched; searching for a neighborhood definitional domain block corresponding to the value region block to be matched; calculating affinity, matching the affinity and the value region block, and calculating a
mean square error of the affinity and the value region block; comparing the
mean square error with the threshold value; if the
mean square error is small, recording a current value region block, a current definitional domain block and the affinity; if the mean
square error is greater, judging whether the current value region block is the
maximum depth or not, recording the current value region block, a definitional domain block with the lowest error, and the affinity if the current value region block is the
maximum depth, and if the current value region block is not the
maximum depth, dividing the value region block into sub-blocks according to the quad tree as value region blocks to be matched, correspondingly reducing the corresponding definitional domain block, and repeating the matching process; and judging whether all the value region blocks to be matched are matched or not, and if not all the value region blocks to be matched are matched, repeating the matching process. Searching time is shortened, and high
image recovery quality is ensured.