Error Resilient Image Communication Using Content-Based Multiple Description Coding**This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and McMaster University.

Multiple description co ding has been studie d as an approach for transmission of images over error prone envir onments. The multiple description coding method propose d here takes into ac count the content of the image and provides the least amount of de gradation, cause d by loss of descriptors, for those arms of the image which are of greater inter est. This is achieved by employing a non-linear ge ometrical transform to add r edundancy mainly to the area of interest followed by a partitioning of the non-linearly transformed image into sub-images which are code d and transmitted over separate channels. Simulations show that this approach yields exc eptional performance even when only one descriptor is receive d. Moreover, the method proposed here can be implemented through pre- and post-processing of the image data, without modific ation to the source codecs (e.g., JPEG).