Secret image sharing (SIS) belongs to but differs from secret sharing. In general, conventional (k,n) threshold SIS has the shortcoming of "all-or-nothing". In this article, first we introduce ramp SIS definition. Then we propose a (k1,k2,n) ramp SIS based on the Chinese remainder theorem (CRT). In the proposed scheme, on the one hand, when we collect any k1 or more and less than k2 shadows, the secret image will be disclosed in a progressive way. On the other hand, when we collect any k2 or more shadows, the secret image will be disclosed losslessly. Furthermore, the disclosing method is only modular arithmetic, which can be used in some real-time applications. We give theoretical analyses and experiments to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Keywords: Chinese remainder theorem; lossless recovery; progressiveness; ramp secret image sharing; secret image sharing.