442 research outputs found
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
A family of stereoscopic image compression algorithms using wavelet transforms
With the standardization of JPEG-2000, wavelet-based image and video
compression technologies are gradually replacing the popular DCT-based methods. In
parallel to this, recent developments in autostereoscopic display technology is now
threatening to revolutionize the way in which consumers are used to enjoying the
traditional 2-D display based electronic media such as television, computer and
movies. However, due to the two-fold bandwidth/storage space requirement of
stereoscopic imaging, an essential requirement of a stereo imaging system is efficient
data compression.
In this thesis, seven wavelet-based stereo image compression algorithms are
proposed, to take advantage of the higher data compaction capability and better
flexibility of wavelets. [Continues.
A family of stereoscopic image compression algorithms using wavelet transforms
With the standardization of JPEG-2000, wavelet-based image and video
compression technologies are gradually replacing the popular DCT-based methods. In
parallel to this, recent developments in autostereoscopic display technology is now
threatening to revolutionize the way in which consumers are used to enjoying the
traditional 2D display based electronic media such as television, computer and
movies. However, due to the two-fold bandwidth/storage space requirement of
stereoscopic imaging, an essential requirement of a stereo imaging system is efficient
data compression.
In this thesis, seven wavelet-based stereo image compression algorithms are
proposed, to take advantage of the higher data compaction capability and better
flexibility of wavelets. In the proposed CODEC I, block-based disparity
estimation/compensation (DE/DC) is performed in pixel domain. However, this
results in an inefficiency when DWT is applied on the whole predictive error image
that results from the DE process. This is because of the existence of artificial block
boundaries between error blocks in the predictive error image. To overcome this
problem, in the remaining proposed CODECs, DE/DC is performed in the wavelet
domain. Due to the multiresolution nature of the wavelet domain, two methods of
disparity estimation and compensation have been proposed. The first method is
performing DEJDC in each subband of the lowest/coarsest resolution level and then
propagating the disparity vectors obtained to the corresponding subbands of
higher/finer resolution. Note that DE is not performed in every subband due to the
high overhead bits that could be required for the coding of disparity vectors of all
subbands. This method is being used in CODEC II. In the second method, DEJDC is
performed m the wavelet-block domain. This enables disparity estimation to be
performed m all subbands simultaneously without increasing the overhead bits
required for the coding disparity vectors. This method is used by CODEC III.
However, performing disparity estimation/compensation in all subbands would result
in a significant improvement of CODEC III. To further improve the performance of
CODEC ill, pioneering wavelet-block search technique is implemented in CODEC
IV. The pioneering wavelet-block search technique enables the right/predicted image
to be reconstructed at the decoder end without the need of transmitting the disparity
vectors. In proposed CODEC V, pioneering block search is performed in all subbands
of DWT decomposition which results in an improvement of its performance. Further,
the CODEC IV and V are able to perform at very low bit rates(< 0.15 bpp). In
CODEC VI and CODEC VII, Overlapped Block Disparity Compensation (OBDC) is
used with & without the need of coding disparity vector. Our experiment results
showed that no significant coding gains could be obtained for these CODECs over
CODEC IV & V.
All proposed CODECs m this thesis are wavelet-based stereo image coding
algorithms that maximise the flexibility and benefits offered by wavelet transform
technology when applied to stereo imaging. In addition the use of a baseline-JPEG
coding architecture would enable the easy adaptation of the proposed algorithms
within systems originally built for DCT-based coding. This is an important feature
that would be useful during an era where DCT-based technology is only slowly being
phased out to give way for DWT based compression technology.
In addition, this thesis proposed a stereo image coding algorithm that uses JPEG-2000
technology as the basic compression engine. The proposed CODEC, named RASTER
is a rate scalable stereo image CODEC that has a unique ability to preserve the image
quality at binocular depth boundaries, which is an important requirement in the design
of stereo image CODEC. The experimental results have shown that the proposed
CODEC is able to achieve PSNR gains of up to 3.7 dB as compared to directly
transmitting the right frame using JPEG-2000
Image Compression Techniques: A Survey in Lossless and Lossy algorithms
The bandwidth of the communication networks has been increased continuously as results of technological advances. However, the introduction of new services and the expansion of the existing ones have resulted in even higher demand for the bandwidth. This explains the many efforts currently being invested in the area of data compression. The primary goal of these works is to develop techniques of coding information sources such as speech, image and video to reduce the number of bits required to represent a source without significantly degrading its quality. With the large increase in the generation of digital image data, there has been a correspondingly large increase in research activity in the field of image compression. The goal is to represent an image in the fewest number of bits without losing the essential information content within. Images carry three main type of information: redundant, irrelevant, and useful. Redundant information is the deterministic part of the information, which can be reproduced without loss from other information contained in the image. Irrelevant information is the part of information that has enormous details, which are beyond the limit of perceptual significance (i.e., psychovisual redundancy). Useful information, on the other hand, is the part of information, which is neither redundant nor irrelevant. Human usually observes decompressed images. Therefore, their fidelities are subject to the capabilities and limitations of the Human Visual System. This paper provides a survey on various image compression techniques, their limitations, compression rates and highlights current research in medical image compression
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
Perceptually lossless coding of medical images - from abstraction to reality
This work explores a novel vision model based coding approach to encode medical images at a perceptually lossless quality, within the framework of the JPEG 2000 coding engine. Perceptually lossless encoding offers the best of both worlds, delivering images free of visual distortions and at the same time providing significantly greater compression ratio gains over its information lossless counterparts. This is achieved through a visual pruning function, embedded with an advanced model of the human visual system to accurately identify and to efficiently remove visually irrelevant/insignificant information. In addition, it maintains bit-stream compliance with the JPEG 2000 coding framework and subsequently is compliant with the Digital Communications in Medicine standard (DICOM). Equally, the pruning function is applicable to other Discrete Wavelet Transform based image coders, e.g., The Set Partitioning in Hierarchical Trees. Further significant coding gains are exploited through an artificial edge segmentatio n algorithm and a novel arithmetic pruning algorithm. The coding effectiveness and qualitative consistency of the algorithm is evaluated through a double-blind subjective assessment with 31 medical experts, performed using a novel 2-staged forced choice assessment that was devised for medical experts, offering the benefits of greater robustness and accuracy in measuring subjective responses. The assessment showed that no differences of statistical significance were perceivable between the original images and the images encoded by the proposed coder
Scalable video compression with optimized visual performance and random accessibility
This thesis is concerned with maximizing the coding efficiency, random accessibility and visual performance of scalable compressed video. The unifying theme behind this work is the use of finely embedded localized coding structures, which govern the extent to which these goals may be jointly achieved.
The first part focuses on scalable volumetric image compression. We investigate 3D transform and coding techniques which exploit inter-slice statistical redundancies without compromising slice accessibility. Our study shows that the motion-compensated temporal discrete wavelet transform (MC-TDWT) practically achieves an upper bound to the compression efficiency of slice transforms. From a video coding perspective, we find that most of the coding gain is attributed to offsetting the learning penalty in adaptive arithmetic coding through 3D code-block extension, rather than inter-frame context modelling.
The second aspect of this thesis examines random accessibility. Accessibility refers to the ease with which a region of interest is accessed (subband samples needed for reconstruction are retrieved) from a compressed video bitstream, subject to spatiotemporal code-block constraints. We investigate the fundamental implications of motion compensation for random access efficiency and the compression performance of scalable interactive video. We demonstrate that inclusion of motion compensation operators within the lifting steps of a temporal subband transform incurs a random access penalty which depends on the characteristics of the motion field.
The final aspect of this thesis aims to minimize the perceptual impact of visible distortion in scalable reconstructed video. We present a visual optimization strategy based on distortion scaling which raises the distortion-length slope of perceptually significant samples. This alters the codestream embedding order during post-compression rate-distortion optimization, thus allowing visually sensitive sites to be encoded with higher fidelity at a given bit-rate.
For visual sensitivity analysis, we propose a contrast perception model that incorporates an adaptive masking slope. This versatile feature provides a context which models perceptual significance. It enables scene structures that otherwise suffer significant degradation to be preserved at lower bit-rates. The novelty in our approach derives from a set of "perceptual mappings" which account for quantization noise shaping effects induced by motion-compensated temporal synthesis. The proposed technique reduces wavelet compression artefacts and improves the perceptual quality of video
Hybrid Region-based Image Compression Scheme for Mamograms and Ultrasound Images
The need for transmission and archive of mammograms and ultrasound Images has
dramatically increased in tele-healthcare applications. Such images require large
amount of' storage space which affect transmission speed. Therefore an effective
compression scheme is essential. Compression of these images. in general. laces a
great challenge to compromise between the higher compression ratio and the relevant
diagnostic information. Out of the many studied compression schemes. lossless
.
IPl. (i-
LS and lossy SPII IT are found to he the most efficient ones. JPEG-LS and SI'll IT are
chosen based on a comprehensive experimental study carried on a large number of
mammograms and ultrasound images of different sizes and texture. The lossless
schemes are evaluated based on the compression ratio and compression speed. The
distortion in the image quality which is introduced by lossy methods evaluated based
on objective criteria using Mean Square Error (MSE) and Peak signal to Noise Ratio
(PSNR). It is found that lossless compression can achieve a modest compression ratio
2: 1 - 4: 1. bossy compression schemes can achieve higher compression ratios than
lossless ones but at the price of the image quality which may impede diagnostic
conclusions. In this work, a new compression approach called Ilvbrid Region-based Image
Compression Scheme (IIYRICS) has been proposed for the mammograms and
ultrasound images to achieve higher compression ratios without compromising the
diagnostic quality. In I LYRICS, a modification for JPI; G-LS is introduced to encode
the arbitrary shaped disease affected regions. Then Shape adaptive SPIT IT is applied
on the remaining non region of interest. The results clearly show that this hybrid
strategy can yield high compression ratios with perfect reconstruction of diagnostic
relevant regions, achieving high speed transmission and less storage requirement. For
the sample images considered in our experiment, the compression ratio increases
approximately ten times. However, this increase depends upon the size of the region
of interest chosen. It is also föund that the pre-processing (contrast stretching) of
region of interest improves compression ratios on mammograms but not on ultrasound
images
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