2 research outputs found
Contributions to HEVC Prediction for Medical Image Compression
Medical imaging technology and applications are continuously evolving, dealing with images
of increasing spatial and temporal resolutions, which allow easier and more accurate
medical diagnosis. However, this increase in resolution demands a growing amount of
data to be stored and transmitted. Despite the high coding efficiency achieved by the
most recent image and video coding standards in lossy compression, they are not well
suited for quality-critical medical image compression where either near-lossless or lossless
coding is required.
In this dissertation, two different approaches to improve lossless coding of volumetric
medical images, such as Magnetic Resonance and Computed Tomography, were studied
and implemented using the latest standard High Efficiency Video Encoder (HEVC). In a
first approach, the use of geometric transformations to perform inter-slice prediction was
investigated.
For the second approach, a pixel-wise prediction technique, based on Least-Squares prediction,
that exploits inter-slice redundancy was proposed to extend the current HEVC
lossless tools. Experimental results show a bitrate reduction between 45% and 49%, when
compared with DICOM recommended encoders, and 13.7% when compared with standard
HEVC
Improving minimum rate predictors algorithm for compression of volumetric medical images
Medical imaging technologies are experiencing a growth in terms of usage and image
resolution, namely in diagnostics systems that require a large set of images, like CT or
MRI. Furthermore, legal restrictions impose that these scans must be archived for several
years. These facts led to the increase of storage costs in medical image databases and
institutions. Thus, a demand for more efficient compression tools, used for archiving and
communication, is arising.
Currently, the DICOM standard, that makes recommendations for medical communications
and imaging compression, recommends lossless encoders such as JPEG, RLE,
JPEG-LS and JPEG2000. However, none of these encoders include inter-slice prediction
in their algorithms.
This dissertation presents the research work on medical image compression, using the
MRP encoder. MRP is one of the most efficient lossless image compression algorithm.
Several processing techniques are proposed to adapt the input medical images to the
encoder characteristics. Two of these techniques, namely changing the alignment of slices
for compression and a pixel-wise difference predictor, increased the compression efficiency
of MRP, by up to 27.9%.
Inter-slice prediction support was also added to MRP, using uni and bi-directional techniques.
Also, the pixel-wise difference predictor was added to the algorithm. Overall, the
compression efficiency of MRP was improved by 46.1%. Thus, these techniques allow for
compression ratio savings of 57.1%, compared to DICOM encoders, and 33.2%, compared
to HEVC RExt Random Access. This makes MRP the most efficient of the encoders
under study