Abstract
The demand of image compression is increasing now for the integration of medical images into the hospital information system. Even though the quantitative distortion can be measured from the difference between original and reconstructed images, it doesn't include the nonlinear characteristics of human visual system. In this study, we have evaluated the nonlinear characteristics of human visual system and applied them to the compression of medical images. The distortion measures which reflect the characteristics of human visual system has been considered. This image compression procedure consists of coding scheme using JND (Just Noticeable Difference) curve, polynomial approximation and BTC (Block Truncation Coding). Results show that this method can be applied to CT images, scanned film images and other kinds of medical images with the compression ratio of 5-10:1 without any noticeable distortion.
