Effect of ETC1 endpoint quantization on Luma SSIM/PSNR

In this test on the 24 kodak images I quantized the ETC1 block colors/intensity tables (or what I've been calling "endpoints", from DXT1/BC1 terminology) to 128 clusters, but the selectors were not quantized at all. 128 clusters for endpoints is at the edge of usability for many photos.

This test also adaptively limits blocks to only a single endpoint (verses a unique endpoint for each subblock), if doing so doesn't lower the block's PSNR by more than 1.25 dB.

Anyhow, these two graphs show that this process is quite  effective. Even at only 128 clusters, the overall SSIM is only reduced by around .01, while the bitrate is reduced by around .4 - .5 bits/texel.

The results look surprisingly good. I've made great progress on quality per bit over the previous few weeks, and I'll be posting images and .KTX files in a day or so.



Two more graphs, with 3 different endpoint quantization settings:


Overall stats:

ETC1 (no quantization):
best_luma_psnr: Avg: 40.009226, Std Dev: 2.154732, Min: 35.193684, Max: 42.750275, Mean: 41.113007
best_luma_ssim: Avg: 0.983419, Std Dev: 0.002109, Min: 0.980131, Max: 0.989254, Mean: 0.983190
best_bits_per_texel: Avg: 2.851078, Std Dev: 0.341672, Min: 2.184774, Max: 3.482361, Mean: 2.822876

128 endpoints:
rdo_luma_psnr: Avg: 38.042171, Std Dev: 1.874003, Min: 34.209053, Max: 41.065495, Mean: 38.749592
rdo_luma_ssim: Avg: 0.974083, Std Dev: 0.004284, Min: 0.960817, Max: 0.983318, Mean: 0.974376
rdo_bits_per_texel: Avg: 2.351300, Std Dev: 0.318168, Min: 1.788859, Max: 2.967855, Mean: 2.344340

512 endpoints:
rdo_luma_psnr: Avg: 39.239567, Std Dev: 2.001313, Min: 34.834538, Max: 41.839687, Mean: 40.379951
rdo_luma_ssim: Avg: 0.979648, Std Dev: 0.002847, Min: 0.973445, Max: 0.987098, Mean: 0.979329
rdo_bits_per_texel: Avg: 2.617640, Std Dev: 0.345818, Min: 2.031942, Max: 3.296285, Mean: 2.604553

1024 endpoints:
rdo_luma_psnr: Avg: 39.490915, Std Dev: 2.033055, Min: 34.942341, Max: 42.026814, Mean: 40.666183
rdo_luma_ssim: Avg: 0.980563, Std Dev: 0.002673, Min: 0.976034, Max: 0.987617, Mean: 0.980514
rdo_bits_per_texel: Avg: 2.693218, Std Dev: 0.356560, Min: 2.069397, Max: 3.390055, Mean: 2.668416

The next 2 graphs show RDO ETC1 compression using 24,576 selectors and endpoints. This disables quantization on the kodak test images, for all practical purposes. Note that adaptive subblock utilization is still enabled here, so it's possible for a block's subblocks to be forced to use the same block colors/intensity tables (endpoints) if the quality loss is < 1.25 dB.