An image-coding scheme which combines transform coding with a human visual system (HVS) model is described. The system includes an eye tracker to pick up the point of regard of a single viewer. One can then utilize that the acuity of the HVS is less in the peripheral vision than in the central part of the visual field. A model of the decreasing acuity of the HVS, which can be applied to a wide class of transform coders is described. Such a coding system has large potential for data compression. In this paper, we have incorporated the model into four different transform coders, one from each of the main classes of transform coders. Two of the coders are block-based decomposition schemes, the discrete cosine transform-based JPEG coder and a lapped transform scheme. The two others are subband-based decomposition schemes, a wavelet based and a wavelet packet-based scheme. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.