A codebook generating method comprises a dividing and transforming step dividing an original image into original blocks and transforming the original blocks into original vectors; a dividing step grouping the original vectors to obtain centroids; a first layer neuron training step selecting a portion of the centroids as first-level neurons; a grouping step assigning each of the original vectors to a closest first-level neuron so as to obtain groups; a second layer neuron assigning step assigning a number of second-level neurons in each of the groups, and selecting a portion of the original vectors in each of the groups as the second-level neurons; and a second layer neuron training step defining the original vectors in each of the groups as samples, training the second-level neurons in each of the groups to obtain final neurons, and storing vectors corresponding to the final neurons in a codebook.