Current  Optics  and  Photonics 
Vol.  2,  No.  4,  August  2018,  pp.  315-323
ISSN:  2508-7266(Print)  /  ISSN:  2508-7274(Online)
DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3807/COPP.2018.2.4.315
Research  on  Multiple-image  Encryption  Scheme  Based  on 
Fourier  Transform  and  Ghost  Imaging  Algorithm
Zhang  Leihong1,  Yuan  Xiao1
*,  Zhang  Dawei1,  and  Chen  Jian2
1University  of  Shanghai  for  Science  and  Technology,  Shanghai  200093,  China
2Anhui  Province  Key  Laboratory  of  Nondestructive  Evaluation,  Hefei  230031,China
(Received  April  26,  2018  :  revised  July  4,  2018  :  accepted  July  11,  2018)
A  new  multiple-image  encryption  scheme  that  is  based  on  a  compressive  ghost  imaging  concept  along 
with  a  Fourier  transform  sampling  principle  has  been  proposed.  This  further  improves  the  security  of 
the  scheme.  The  scheme  adopts  a  Fourier  transform  to  sample  the  original  multiple-image  information 
respectively,  utilizing  the  centrosymmetric  conjugation  property  of  the  spatial  spectrum  of  the  images  to 
obtain  each  Fourier  coefficient  in  the  most  abundant  spatial  frequency  band.  Based  on  this  sampling 
principle,  the  multiple  images  to  be  encrypted  are  grouped  into  a  combined  image,  and  then  the  compressive 
ghost  imaging  algorithm  is  used  to  improve  the  security,  which  reduces  the  amount  of  information 
transmission  and  improves  the  information  transmission  rate.  Due  to  the  presence  of  the  compressive 
sensing  algorithm,  the  scheme  improves  the  accuracy  of  image  reconstruction.
Keywords : Fourier  transform,  Compressive  sensing,  Ghost  imaging,  Multiple-image  Encryption
OCIS codes : (070.2575)  Fractional  Fourier  transforms;  (100.3010)  Image  reconstruction  techniques; 
(200.4560)  Optical  data  processing
I.  INTRODUCTION
information 
With  the  rapid  development  of  computer  and  Internet 
technologies,  information  security  has  attracted  more  and 
more  researchers.  Due  to  the  ultra-high  speed  and  multiple 
dimensional  processing,  optical 
security 
technology  has  been  popular  for  a  long  time,  including 
double  random  phase  encryption  technology  [1-5]  and  ghost 
imaging  technology  [6-10].  As  another  important  branch  of 
optical  encryption,  multiple-image  encryption  technology 
has  attracted  more  and  more  attention  because  it  not  only 
improves  the  encryption  ability  but  also  reduces  the  data 
volume  of  the  ciphertext.  As  far  as  multi-image  encryption 
technology  is  concerned,  it  mainly  focuses  on  researching 
new  methods  for  simultaneous  encryption  of  multiple  images, 
to  enhance  the  security  of  data  and  improve  the  robustness 
of  the  system.
Klyshko  proposed  a  ghost  imaging  scheme  that  has 
attracted  more  and  more  attention  owing  to  its  remarkable 
physical  properties  [6].  Katz  et  al.  achieved  computational 
ghost  imaging  based  on  a  compressive  sensing  algorithm 
instead  of  the  intensity  correlation  operation,  which  greatly 
reduces  the  number  of  measurements;  when  the  signals 
and  images  are  sparse  or  can  be  sparse  in  some  transform 
domains,  the  use  of  a  compressive  sensing  algorithm  can 
directly  measure  and  simultaneously  compress  the  signal  or 
image.  Finally,  the  signal  will  be  reconstructed  by  the 
receiver’s  reconstruction  algorithm  [11-13].
In  order  to  improve  coding  efficiency,  the  methods  of 
multiple-image  encryption  based  on  position  multiplexing 
and  computational  ghost  imaging  [14];  double  random  phase 
encryption  [15]  etc.  have  been  proposed.  Lee  and  Cho  [15] 
proposed  a  multiple-image  transmission  method  based  on 
double  random  phase  encryption  using  orthogonal  encoding, 
which  uses  two  random  phase  masks  and  orthogonal 
encoding.  The  orthogonal  encoding  for  multiple  images 
uses  a  larger  Hadamard  matrix  than  that  for  a  single  image, 
increasing  the  security  of  encryption.  Li  et  al.  [16]  proposed 
*Corresponding  author:  yxhello365@163.com,  ORCID  0000-0002-2878-3217.
  Color  versions  of  one  or  more  of  the  figures  in  this  paper  are  available  online.
*
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative  Commons  Attribution  Non-Commercial  License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc/4.0/)  which  permits  unrestricted  non-commercial  use,  distribution,  and  reproduction  in  any medium, provided the original work is 
properly cited.
*Copyright 
 2018 Current Optics and Photonics 
- 315 -
316
Current  Optics  and  Photonics,  Vol.  2,  No.  4,  August  2018
a  multiple-image  encryption  method  based  on  compressive 
ghost  imaging,  in  which  an  improved  logistic  mapping 
algorithm  and  the  coordination  of  sampling  were  used  to 
achieve  multiple-image  encryption  and  decryption;  Wu  et 
al.  [17]  proposed  a  multiple-image  encryption  scheme 
based  on  computational  ghost 
imaging  with  different 
diffraction  distances,  each  plane  image  is  encrypted  into  an 
intensity  vector,  and  then  all  the  intensity  vectors  are 
added  together  to  generate  the  final  density  in  order  to 
improve  the  effectiveness  and  security  of  the  multiple-image 
encryption  scheme;  Yuan  et  al.  [18]  proposed  a  multi-image 
encryption  scheme  with  a  single-pixel  detector  according 
to  the  principle  of  ghost  imaging.  In  this  scheme,  all  the 
emitted  light  is  recorded  by  a  single-pixel  barrel  detector 
to  obtain  ciphertext,  and  any  secret 
images  can  be 
independently  decrypted  from  the  ciphertext.  The  above 
encryption  methods  are  provided  with  good  security,  but  in 
computational  ghost  imaging,  thousands  of  calculations  are 
needed  to  obtain  acceptable  results.  In  some  applications,  a 
large  amount  of  storage  space  is  required  for  optical  image 
encryption  based  on  ghost  imaging.  In  this  sense,  we 
propose  a  multi-image  encryption  scheme  based  on  Fourier 
transforms  and  compressive  ghost  imaging.  The  images 
adopt  Fourier  transforms  to  obtain  the  image  information. 
According  to  different  sampling  rates,  multiple  images  are 
synthesized  into  an  image  in  the  Fourier  space.  Then  the 
encryption  and  decryption  was  achived  by  the  compressive 
ghost  imaging  algorithm,  which  realizes  data  compression 
and  reduces  the  storage  space  of  the  data.  Firstly,  the 
theoretical  analysis  and  description  of  the  method  are  given, 
and  then  simulation  verification  is  carried  out.  Finally,  the 
conclusion  is  drawn.
II.  THEORETICAL  ANALYSIS
2.1.  Optical  Encryption  Mechanism  Based  on  Compressive 
Ghost  Imaging  Algorithm
In  the  computational  ghost  imaging  encryption  system, 
the  spatial  light  modulator  (SLM)  that  inputs  a  series  of 
phase  masks  is  used,  as  shown  in  Fig.  1  [19].  The  plane 
wave  is  modulated  by  the  phase  masks  and  a  Fresnel 
diffraction  occurrs  with  a  distance  Z  from  phase  masks 
plane  to  object  plane.  Then  the  light  intensity  distribution 
in  the  object  plane  could  be  calculated  by  using  the 
Fresnel  diffraction,  which  can  be  expressed  as  [20]
yxI
,(
i
)
=
FrTz
{
exp[
j
2
πϕ
i
,(
yx
} 2
)]
 
(1)
{ }
FrT
,(
where 
)
yxϕ
  represents  the  Fresnel  diffraction  transform, 
  is  the  pixel  distribution  of  each  phase  mask,  whose 
pixel  values  are  randomly  from  0  to  1.  The  subscript  “i” 
represents  the  i-th  measurement  value  using  the  i-th  phase 
mask,  and  the  subscript  “Z”  represents  diffraction  distance, 
and  the  amplitude  of  the  plane  wave  is  defined  as  unit  one.
FIG.  1.  Schematic  of  computional  ghost  image  encryption 
system.
Therefore,  the  new  imaging  process  only  requires  a  bucket 
B ,  which  can  be 
detector  (BD)  to  obtain  the  ciphertext 
expressed  as
i
B
i
,(∫=
yxIyxT
,(
)
i
)
dxdy
 
(2)
yxT
,(
)
where  the 
  is  the  image  to  be  encrypted.  Therefore, 
the  image  T  to  be  encrypted  is  successfully  encoded  in  a 
series  of  light  intensity  ciphertext  data 
B   using  the  phase 
mask  key  and  the  distance  parameter  Z.  During  the 
decryption  process,  an  intensity-related  operation  occurred 
between  the  intensity  distribution 
  and  intensity 
ciphertext  data 
B   from  the  bucket  detector  to  calculate  a 
secret  image,  which  can  be  expressed  as
,(
yxI
)
i
i
yxG
,(
)
〈=
yxIB
,(
)
〈−〉
yxIB
,(
〉〈
i
i
i
i
)
〉
 
(3)
where  〈•〉  represents  the  average  operation.
However,  the  ghost  imaging  algorithm  is  a  statistical 
feature  extraction  process.  The  detection  time  required  for 
imaging  and  the  resolution  time  for  the  reconstruction 
algorithm  are  relatively  long.  In  order  to  solve  this  problem, 
Donoho  proposed  a  new  reconstruction  algorithm  based  on 
compressive  sensing,  which  greatly  reduced  the  number  of 
exposure  samplings  and  reduced  the  amount  of  computation. 
At  the  same  time,  more  encrypted  information  can  be 
transmitted  and  the  amount  of  information  transmitted  is 
increased  under  the  same  calculation  conditions.  That  is  to 
say,  the  ghost  imaging  combined  with  the  compressive 
sensing  algorithm  successfully  solves  the  problems  of  long 
imaging  time  and  low  accuracy  of  object  reconstruction. 
The  specific  encryption  process  is:  the  plaintext  image 
   to  be  encrypted  is  a  two-dimensional  image,  and 
the  size  is   ×   which  is  stretched  into  a  column  vector 
( × ).  For  the  m-th  measurement,  the  light  distribution 
)
 
function  of  the  reference  arm  at  the  pixel  point 
is 
,  whose  matrix 
, 
expression  is:
2,1=
2,1
, =
qp
(
x ,
m
, 
N
y
x
n
)
(
y
I
p
q
p
q
,
m
=
I
m
⎡
⎢
⎢
⎢
⎢
⎢
⎣
I
m
11
I
m
21
I
m
1
n
I
m
2
n
I
m
1
n
I
m
nn
⎤
⎥
⎥
⎥
⎥
⎥
⎦
 
(4)
Research  on  Multiple-image  Encryption  Scheme  Based  on  …  -  Zhang  Leihong  et  al.
317
The  matrix  size  is   × ,  
   is  the  intensity  of  the  light 
measured  by  the  m-th  measurement  at  the  pixel  point 
()  of  the  CCD  measurement  plane,  which  is  stretched 
into  a  one-dimensional  row  vector.  After  N  times  of 
measurement,  the  N   ×   one-dimensional  row  vectors 
recorded  by  the  CCD  are  stored  in  columns  to  get  a 
 ,  the  size  of  which  is   ×   and  as 
random  matrix  
a  measurement  matrix    of  compressive  sensing,  ie
The  matrix  of  the  sampling  image  is  represented  in 
Eq.  (9),  where  (x,y)  denotes  a  two-dimensional  matrix  in 
the  spatial  domain  and  (u,v)  denotes  a  two-dimensional 
matrix  in  the  Fourier  domain.  The  value  of  i  varies 
from  1  to  k,  where  k  is  the  total  number  of  images  to 
be  encrypted,  the  images  are  sampled  by  a  sampling 
operation  to  obtain  useful  information  in  the  images;
),(
vus
i
Ω=
i
 
),(
yxfFvu
,(
[
i
])
 
(9)
   
 
 ⋯ 
  
 
 ⋯   
 
   
The  expression  of  the  encryption  process  is:
⋮
 ⋯ 
 ⋯ 
 ⋯ 
 ⋯ 
⋮ ⋱ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮
 ⋯ 
 ⋯ 
⋮
⋮
(5)
(6)
 
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
A  compressive  sensing  algorithm  is  used  for  decryption. 
The  original  signal  can  be  reconstructed  from  these  projections 
with  high  probability  by  solving  an  optimization  problem. 
The  minimum    norm  convex  programming  problem  is 
shown  in  Eq.  (7).  The  CS  reconstruction  algorithm  recovers 
the  signal  as  in  Eq.  (8).
min∥∥ st    
  ′argmin∥ ′  ∥ 
(7)
(8)
2.2.  Fourier  Transform  Encryption/  Sampling  Principle
The  two-dimensional  image  Fourier  transform  is  to 
convert  the  distribution  of  image  luminance  values  in  the 
spatial  domain  to  the  frequency  domain  distribution  of  the 
image.  In  this  paper,  the  fast  Fourier  transform  (FFT)  can 
be  used  to  convert  the  image  signal  from  the  spatial 
domain  to  the  frequency  domain  for  analysis.  Using  the 
sparseness  and  conjugacy  of  the  spatial  spectrum  of  the 
image,  the  important  information  of  the  image  is  obtained 
according  to  different  sampling  rates  in  the  Fourier  space. 
In  this  paper,  four  binary  images  are  taken  as  an  example. 
The  spectrum  and  sampling  are  shown  in  Figs.  2  and  3.
2.3.  The  Method  of  Multiple-Image  Encryption 
The  multiple-image  encryption  and  decryption  process 
based  on  the  Fourier  transform  and  compressive  ghost 
imaging  algorithm  are  shown  in  Figs.  4  and  5.  The  main 
steps  are  as  follows:
(1) Fourier  transforms  are  applied  to  the  multiple  images 
and  converted  from  spatial  domain  to  frequency  domain;
(2) In  the  frequency  domain,  multiple  images  are  sampled 
and  combined  to  form  a  single  ciphertext,  and  the 
formed  single  ciphertext  is  used  as  the  plaintext  image 
of  the  next  encryption  algorithm  with  ghost  imaging. 
(e)
(f)
(g)
(h)
FIG. 2. (a-d) are four original images; (e-h) are their corres-
ponding spectrograms.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
FIG. 3. (a-e) are spatial spectra with sampling rates of 6%, 
11%, 25%, 50%, and 75%.
FIG. 4. Multiple-Image encryption schematic based on Fourier 
transform and Compressive sensing ghost imaging algorithm.
318
Current  Optics  and  Photonics,  Vol.  2,  No.  4,  August  2018
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
(h)
(i)
(j)
(k)
(l)
(m)
(n)
FIG.  6.  (a-d)  are  the  original  images;  (e-h)  are  the  corres-
ponding  spectrograms;  (i)  is  the  combined  image  with  a 
sampling rate rate of 50%; (j) is the combined ciphertext (The 
real part and the imaginary part are respectively subjected to 
ghost imaging and then recombined into a plural form); (k-n) 
are different reconstruction images.
3.1.  Feasibility  Analysis
the  optical 
information  encryption  method 
Feasibility  refers  to  the  situation  where  the  recipient 
recovers  the  original  graphic  information  by  using  the  key 
shared  by  the  sender  and  the  ciphertext  delivered  on  the 
common  channel.  The  feasibility  assessment  is  performed 
using 
to 
reconstruct  the  resolution  of  the  plaintext  information, 
which  is  measured  using  subjective  judgments  and  objective 
parameters.  In  this  section  we  will  discuss  the  feasibility  of 
the  encryption  method,  and  compare  the  Fourier  transform 
and  compressive  ghost  imaging  (FFT-CGI)  with  the  Fourier 
transform  and  ghost  imaging  algorithm  (FFT-GI).  As  shown 
in  Figs.  7  and  8.
In  order  to  objectively  and  accurately  evaluate  the  quality 
of  the  recovered  images  using  the  encryption  method.  The 
commonly  used  objective  evaluation  indicators  include 
mean  square  error  (MSE)  and  peak  signal-to-noise  ratio 
(PSNR).  The  basic  idea  is  to  measure  the  degree  of 
deviation  of  the  pixels  of  the  reconstructed  image  from  the 
corresponding  pixels  of  the  original  image  to  evaluate  the 
quality  of  the  reconstructed  image.  For  a  size  of  M × N 
image,  the  mathematical  expression  for  MSE  and  PSNR  is:
FIG. 5. Multiple-image decryption schematic based Fourier 
transform and compressive ghost imaging algorithm.
(3) Since  the  formed  single  ciphertext  is  of  the  character-
istics  of  a  complex-valued  function,  it  is  separated  into 
real  and  imaginary  parts.  Then,  they  are  transmitted 
and  encrypted  by  using  ghost  imaging.  With  a  random 
modulation  signal  as  the  key,  encryption  can  be  achieved 
due  to  the  randomness  of  the  key;
(4) The  compressive  sensing  algorithm  is  used  to  decrypt 
separately  the  transmitted  ciphertexts  and  combine  the 
decrypted  parts  into  a  plural  form.  Therefore,  the 
combined  image  is  obtained.  The  combined  image 
contains  the  reconstructed  multiple  images  through 
),(
vuΩ
  operation;
(5) The  inverse  Fourier  transform  is  performed  on  the 
reconstructed  images  to  obtain  the  original  images.
III.  SIMULATION  RESULTS  AND  ANALYSIS
In  order  to  verify  the  effectiveness  and  feasibility  of  this 
method,  a  numerical  experiment  was  carried  out  for  this 
method.  The  experiment  was  mainly  realized  by  MATLAB 
software.  The  selected  experimental  object  is  four  64 × 64 
binary  images.  The  four  binary  images  adopt  are  transformed, 
and  the  transformed  images  are  sampled  according  to 
different  sampling  rates;  the  images  obtained  by  Fourier 
transform  sampling  are  used  as  the  plaintext  images  of  the 
compressive  ghost  imaging  algorithm.  That  is,  the  object 
   to  be  imaged;  Transforming  a  pre-fabricated  light 
   into  a  row  as  a  measurement 
field  intensity  matrix  
matrix    for  the  compressive  ghost  imaging  algorithm;  The 
measured  value  obtained  by  multiplying  the  pre-determined 
light  field  intensity  matrix  and  the  binary  image  is  taken 
as  the  total  light  intensity  ,  and  the  N  precast  light 
field  intensity  matrices  are  arranged  in  order  to  form  a 
measurement  matrix  .  The  object  to  be  imaged  is  measured 
to  obtain  N  measurement  values,  and  the  image  of  the 
object  is  reconstructed  by  Eq.  (5).  The  simulation  results 
are  shown  in  Fig.  6.
Research  on  Multiple-image  Encryption  Scheme  Based  on  …  -  Zhang  Leihong  et  al.
319
  
′ 
 
  
  
 × 
 
  lg
max
 
 
(10)
(11)
where     an   ′    represent  respectively  the  pixel  value  of 
the  original  image  and  the  restored  image,  max  represents 
the  value  of  the  largest  pixel  in  the  image.  The  larger  the 
PSNR  value,  the  more  similar  the  two  images  are.  That  is, 
the  higher  the  recovered  picture  quality,  the  better  the 
encryption  algorithm  is.
FIG. 7. Reconstruction images of FFT-CGI (a1-d1) are the original images; (e1-h1) are the reconstructed images with the sampling 
rate of 6%; (i1-l1) are the reconstructed images with the sampling rate of 11%; (m1-p1) are the reconstructed images with the sampling 
rate of 25%; (q1-t1) are the reconstructed images with the sampling rate of 50%; (u1-x1) are the reconstructed images with the 
sampling rate of 70%.
FIG. 8. Reconstruction images of FFT-GI (a2-d2) are the original images; (e2-h2) are the reconstructed images with the sampling rate 
of 6%; (i2-l2) are the reconstructed images with the sampling rate of 11%; (m2-p2) are the reconstructed images with the sampling 
rate of 25%; (q2-t2) are the reconstructed images with the sampling rate of 50%; (u2-x2) are the reconstructed images with the 
sampling rate of 70%.
CGI-image1
CGI-image2
CGI-image3
CGI-image4
GI-image1
GI-image2
GI-image3
GI-image4
320
R
N
S
P
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
sampling ratio
FIG.  9.  PSNR  curve  of  two  algorithms  under  different 
sampling conditions.
The  PSNR  values  of  the  two  methods  at  different 
sampling  rates  are  shown  in  Fig.  9.
The  solid  lines  of  different  colors  in  the  figure  represent 
the  PSNR  transformation  of  different  images  under  different 
sampling  conditions  in  the  FFT-CGI  method.  The  dotted 
lines  of  different  colors  represent  the  PSNR  transformation 
of  different  images  under  different  sampling  conditions  in 
the  FFT-GI  method.  The  trends  of  the  curves  in  Figs.  8~10 
show  that:  (1)  With  the  increase  of  the  sampling  rate,  the 
PSNR  value  shows  an  upward  trend,  that  is,  the  larger  the 
number  of  samples,  the  greater  the  PSNR,  the  higher  the 
quality  of  the  reconstructed  image,  and  the  closer  to  the 
original  image  information;  (2)  When  the  sampling  rate  is 
50%,  or  70%,  the  reconstructed  images  are  approximately 
similar;  (3)  When  the  sampling  rate  is  25%,  the  corresponding 
PSNR  values  of  the  FFT-CGI  scheme  are  respectively 
18.0702,  18.6568,  17.0901.  The  reconstructed  images  are 
close  to  the  original  images.  However,  the  corresponding 
PSNR  values  of  the  FFT-GI  scheme  are  respectively 
7.1612,  7.5638,  7.6249,  7.1821.  In  the  scheme,  the  original 
image  cannot  be  reconstructed  when  the  sampling  rate 
reaches  50%.  These  experimental  results  show  that  the 
images  recovered  by  the  FFT-CGI  scheme  has  better  quality, 
which  proves  that  the  scheme  is  more  effective  in  terms 
of  feasibility.  At  the  same  time,  it  shows  that  the  CS 
algorithm  can  achieve  the  characteristics  of  low  sampling 
rate  and  high  reconstruction  quality.
3.2.  Security  Analysis
In  practical  applications,  an  absolutely  secure  crypto-
graphic  system  does  not  exist.  If  the  cost  of  deciphering 
the  algorithm  is  greater  than  the  cost  of  the  encrypted 
information, 
the  algorithm  can  be  considered  secure. 
Therefore,  we  need  to  use  existing  password  attack  methods 
as  far  as  possible  to  verify  the  anti-attack  performance  of 
the  designed  system.  For  example,  selected  plaintext  attack, 
Current  Optics  and  Photonics,  Vol.  2,  No.  4,  August  2018
selected  ciphertext  attack,  known  plaintext  attack,  only 
ciphertext  attack,  noise  attack  and  so  on.  This  paper  uses 
only  ciphertext  attack  and  noise  attack  to  attack.
3.2.1.  Ciphertext-only  attack
Ciphertext-only  attacks  (COA)  are  that  attackers  try  to 
analyze  the  key  in  the  intercepted  ciphertext  or  the  plaintext 
corresponding  to  the  ciphertext.  The  ciphertext-only  attack 
is  the  most  difficult  in  all  attacks.  Attackers  usually  can 
guess  the  plaintext  or  key  only  based  on  the  statistical 
characteristics  of  the  secret  text  body.  If  a  cryptosystem 
cannot  resist  ciphertext-only  attacks,  in  theory,  this  crypto-
system  is  insecure.  This  paper  uses  the  histogram  and 
correlation  between  neighboring  pixels  in  statistical  analysis 
to  count  the  ciphertext  characteristics  and  to  verify  the 
security  of  the  method. 
The  histogram  of  the  image  is  a  method  of  analyzing 
the  encryption  algorithm.  The  histogram  distributions  of 
different  images  are  different.  When  the  histogram  distri-
bution  of  the  corresponding  ciphertext  image  is  consistent, 
the  encryption  algorithm  can  resist  histogram  statistical 
analysis  attacks.  It  shows  that  the  scheme  of  this  paper  has 
very  good  security.
Figure  10  is  a  histogram  before  and  after  encryption 
using  this  method:  Fig.  10(a)  is  a  histogram  distribution  of 
a  plaintext  image  with  certain  statistical  characteristics; 
Fig.  10(b)  is  the  histogram  distribution  of  the  ciphertext 
image.  After  the  compressive  ghost  imaging,  the  information 
is  further  compressed  and  the  encrypted  image  is  approxi-
mately  evenly  distributed,  which  shows  that  the  proposed 
scheme  has  good  security.
Each  pixel  in  a  digital  image  is  not  independent  and  is 
very  relevant.  One  of  the  goals  of  image  encryption  is  to 
reduce  the  correlation  of  adjacent  pixels,  which  mainly 
include  the  correlation  among  horizontal  pixels,  vertical 
pixels,  and  diagonal  pixels.  Obviously,  the  smaller  the 
relevance,  the  better  the  effect  of  image  encryption  and  the 
higher  the  security.  The  expression  of  the  pixel  correlation 
coefficient  is:
)(
xE
=
)(
xD
=
1
N
1
N
∑
N
i
1
=
x
i
∑
N
i
1
=
(
xEx
(
−
i
2
))
1
∑
N
i
1
=
(
xEx
(
−
i
())
yEy
(
−
i
 
))
(12)
cov(
,
yx
)
=
N
cov(
,
yx
)
CC
=
)(
yDxD
)(
where  x  and  y  represent  respectively  the  pixel  values  of 
two  adjacent  pixels  in  the  image,  CC  is  the  correlation 
coefficient  of  two  adjacent  pixels.
As  can  be  seen  from  Table  1,  the  adjacent  pixels  of  the 
original  images  have  a  high  correlation  and  the  adjacent 
Research  on  Multiple-image  Encryption  Scheme  Based  on  …  -  Zhang  Leihong  et  al.
321
(a)
(b)
FIG.  10.  Histograms  of  plaintext  and  ciphertext  (a)  The  histogram  corresponding  to  the  plaintext  image;  (b)  The  histogram 
corresponding to the ciphertext image.
TABLE 1. Correlation coefficients of adjacent pixels to a plaintext image and a ciphertext image
Correlation coefficient
Horizontal
Original lena
Encrypted lena
Original A
Encrypted A
0.8358
0.0910
0.8424
0.0514
Vertical
0.6894
0.0241
0.8820
0.0398
Diagonal
0.6397
0.0123
0.8088
0.0258
(a)
(c)
(b)
(d)
FIG. 11. Scatter plots corresponding to plaintext and ciphertext: (a)(c) are scatter plots corresponding to different plaintext images; 
(b)(d) are scatter plots corresponding to different ciphertext images.
322
Current  Optics  and  Photonics,  Vol.  2,  No.  4,  August  2018
pixels  of  the  ciphertext  images  have  a  small  correlation, 
with  the  adjacent  pixels  are  basically  irrelevant,  which 
shows  that  the  statistical  characteristics  of  the  original 
images  have  been  diffused  into  random  ciphertext  images.
In  the  experiment,  MATLAB  software  was  used  to 
simulate  the  correlation  of  adjacent  pixels  in  the  vertical 
direction,  and  the  correlation  was  shown  by  a  scatter  plot, 
as  shown  in  Fig.  11.  Obviously,  the  correlation  of  adjacent 
pixels  in  the  original  image  shows  a  clear  linear  relationship, 
while  the  correlation  of  adjacent  pixels  of  the  encrypted 
image  presents  a  random  correspondence.
3.2.2.  Noise  attack
Noise  attack  is  inevitable  in  the  process  of  information 
encryption  and  propagation,  and  the  noise  will  affect  the 
imaging  quality  of  the  object  and  the  transmission  of  the 
image  information.  Therefore,  it  is  essential  to  evaluate  the 
robustness  of  the  encryption  algorithm  when  the  key  or 
ciphertext  is  attacked  by  noise.  Figure  12  shows  the  NC 
value  of  the  reconstructed  image  under  different  noise 
attack  intensities  in  the  scheme  of  this  paper.  From  the 
figure,  we  can  see  that:  (1)  With  the  increase  of  noise 
intensity,  the  NC  value  has  a  certain  degree  of  decline;  (2) 
Although  a  certain  noise  attack,  the  reconstructed  image 
can  still  be  distinguished,  which  shows  that  the  scheme  of 
this  paper  has  effective  security.
3.2.3.  Compressibility  analysis
This  paper  makes  full  use  of  the  anti-cutting  characteristics 
of  the  Fourier  transform  algorithm,  achieving  information 
compression  and  greatly  reducing  the  amount  of  information 
transmitted.  In  the  experiment,  the  image  information  after 
Fourier  transform  was  cut  out  at  different  proportions,  and 
then  the  cropped  images  adopt  compressive  ghost  imaging. 
Evaluating  the  cropped  information  with  the  quality  of  the 
FIG. 12. Reconstructed images under different noise attack 
intensities.
reconstructed  images  will  not  affect  the  encryption  algorithm 
in  this  paper.  In  this  paper,  similarity  (NC)  is  used  to 
objectively  evaluate  the  degree  of  similarity  between  the 
original  plaintext  image  and  the  reconstructed  image.  The 
obtained  NC  value  is  used  as  an  objective  index  to  evaluate 
the  sharpness  of  the  cut  image  reconstruction,  so  as  to 
determine  the  maximum  cut  ratio  of  the  plaintext  image. 
The  largest  cutting  ratio,  thereby  minimizing  the  amount 
of  information  transmitted,  reducing  storage  space  and 
increasing  the  rate  of  information  transmission.  For  an  image 
of  size  M × N,  the  mathematical  expression  of  similarity 
NC  is  as  follows:
 ′ 
  
  
 
 
(13)
  
  
where  X  is  the  original  plaintext  image,   ′   is  the  recon-
structed  image  for  the  cut  image.  In  this  experiment,  we 
cut  separately  30%,  50%,  75%  of  the  graphic  information 
after  Fourier  transform.  Four  64 × 64  binary  images  were 
selected  and  the  sampling  rate  was  50%.  The  reconstructed 
images  are  shown  in  Fig.  13  (taking  one  of  the  images  as 
an  example).
Where  (a)  represents  the  original  image;  (b-e)  are 
respectively  the  reconstructed  images  of  30%,  50%,  and 
75%,  whose  NC  are  respectively  0.8749,  0.7432,  0.5828. 
From  the  effect  images  of  Fig.  13,  it  can  be  seen  that  the 
reconstructed  images  can  recognize  the  contour  of  the 
original  image  when  the  cropping  ratio  reaches  75%. 
Therefore,  it  is  illustrated  that  the  algorithm  can  successfully 
reconstruct  the  original  images.
From  Table  2,  it  can  be  seen  that  the  amount  of 
transmitted  information  is  2048  bits  when  the  cutting  ratio 
is  75%,  which  greatly  reduces  the  amount  of  transmitted 
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
FIG. 13. Reconstructed images with different cut ratios.
TABLE 2. NC values and transmitted information’s amount 
of reconstructed images in different cut ratios
Percent of cutting 
(%)
30
50
75
Quantity of 
information
5734.4
4096
2048
NC
0.8749
0.7432
0.5828