Comparative Analysis of Various Compression Methods for Medical Images

Rupinder Kaur*, Nisha Kaushal**

*National Institute of Technical Teachers Training & Research, Panjab university, Chandigarh, ** Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering (CSE)

Abstract
The increasing volume of data generated by some medical imaging modalities which justifies the use of different compression techniques to decrease the storage space and efficieny of transfer the images over network for access to electronic patient records. This paper summarizes the different compression methods as compression is one of the technique that reduces the amount of data needed for storage or transmission of information. This paper outlines the comparison of compression methods such as RLE(Run length Encoding), JPEG 2000, Wavelet Transform, SPIHT(Set Partition in Hierarchical Trees) on the basis of compression ratio and compression quality. The comparison of these compression methods are classified according to different medical images on the basis of compression ratio and compression quality.

Encoding), JPEG 2000, Wavelet Transform, , SPIHT(Set Partition in Hierarchical Trees) and these all compression methods are compared on the basis of compression ratio and compression quality. Compression ratio is the measurement of compressed data and compression quality is determined by calculating the PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) is one of the quantitative measure for image quality evaluation which is based on the mean square error(MSE) of the reconstructed image.

2. Medical Image Compression

Digital images are characterized by multiple parameters. The first feature of a digital image is its color mode. A digital image can have one of three modes: binary, grayscale or color. A binary (bilevel) image is an image in which only two possible values for each pixel. A grayscale image means that its each pixel can contain only a tint of gray color. A digital image is a set of pixels. Each pixel has a value that defines color of the pixel. All the pixels are composed into one array. There are several different ways in which image files can be compressed.

Keywords: Compression, Data warehouse, Medical

Images.

1. Introduction
The Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard was created by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) to aid the distribution and viewing of medical images , such as CT scans, MRIs, and ultrasound. DICOM isnt just a digital image-coding format. It is a comprehensive set of standards for handling, storing and transmitting information in medical imaging. Image compression is the application of Data compression on digital images. Process of reducing the amount of data needed for storage or transmission of a given piece of information (text, graphics, video, sound, etc.), typically by use of encoding techniques. Data compression stands for compressing data or files containing data so that they can be stored in much less memory space that they had been stored in their original form. It lets you store more stuff in the same space, and it lets you transfer that stuff in less time, or with less bandwidth. Image data can be com-pressed using a variety of standards, including JPEG, JPEG2000, PNG, GIF, and Run-length encoding (RLE). When talking about quality, Image compression algorithms can be divided into two groups: Algorithms, which compress images without data loss and other is Algorithms, which compress images with data loss. This paper describes the various compression methods such as RLE(Run length

2.1. Lossless Image Compression

When hearing that image data are reduced, one could expect that automatically also the image quality will be reduced. A loss of information is, however, totally avoided in lossless compression, where image data are reduced while image information is totally preserved.It uses the predictive encoding which uses the gray level of each pixel to predict the gray value of its right neighbor. Only the small deviation from this prediction is stored. This is a first step of lossless data reduction. Its effect is to change the statistics of the image signal drastically.Statistical encoding is another important approach to lossless data reduction. Statistical encoding can be especially successful if the gray level statistics of the images has already been changed by predictive coding. The overall result is redundancy reduction, that is reduction of the reiteration of the same bit patterns in the data. Of course, when reading the reduced image data, these processes can be performed in reverse order without any error and thus the original image is recovered. Lossless compression is therefore also called reversible compression.

2.2.Lossy Image Compression

Lossy data compression has of course a strong negative connotation and sometimes it is doubted quite emotionally that it is at all applicable in medical imaging. In transform encoding one performs for each image run a mathematical transformation that is similar to the Fourier transform thus separating image information on gradual spatial variation of brightness (regions of essentially constant brightness) from information with faster variation of brightness at edges of the image (compare: the grouping by the editor of news according to the classes of contents). In the next step, the information on slower changes is transmitted essentially lossless (compare: careful reading of highly relevant pages in the newspaper), but information on faster local changes is communicated with lower accuracy (compare: looking only at the large headings on the less relevant pages). In image data reduction, this second step is called quantization. Since this quantization step cannot be reversed when decompressing the data, the overall compression is lossy or irreversible.

3.Different Compression Methods for Medical Images

Image compression was first used to deal with the limited memories of the first personal computers and the large file size of colour images. Compression algorithms were proposed and developed. The following is an overview of those most commonly used, as they apply to medical imaging.

The JPEG file format was named for the committee that wrote the standard. It was originally designed to deal with colour images, as it can store 24 bits per pixel of colour data (instead of 8 bits per pixel) and restore millions of colours. Compression level is usually expressed in ratios (2:1, 10:1, 20:1, and so on) There are 3 steps: Transformation: The discrete cosine transform cuts the image into blocks of 64 pixels (8 8) and processes each block independently, shifting and simplifying the colours so that there is less information to encode. Quantization: The values in each block are then divided by a quantization coefficient. This is the compression step where information loss occurs. Pixels are changed only in relation to the other pixels within their block. Encoding: The reduced coefficients are then encoded, usually with Huffman coding (entropy encoding that finds the optimal system of encoding based on the relative frequency of each character).With high ratio compression, the block boundaries become obvious, causing the blockiness or blocking artifact frequently observed in JPEG images. Wavelet compression, known as discrete wavelet transform (DWT) treats the image as a signal or wave. It involves the same steps as does JPEG: transformation, quantization, and encoding.The transform organizes the image information into a continuous wave, typically with many peaks and dips, and centres it on zero. The image is treated as a series of waves, one for each colour channel (that is, red, green, and blue), and it may break up big images into large tiles for ease of processing. Having centred the wave, the transform records the distances from the zero line to points along the wave (these distances are known as coefficients) and then takes the average between adjacent coefficients to produce a simplified version of the wave; in effect, it reduces the images resolution or detail by one-half. The averages are then averaged again, and so on, producing progressively simpler waves. This process is known as decomposition Larger differences (steeper rises or falls) represent more significant detail, typically lines or edges within the picture aspects of the image that need to be preserved. In addition to compressing the image, it has all the information necessary to reconstruct the image in finer detail. The end result is a much better image quality than that achieved with a JPEG file. JPEG 2000 is the new standard for wavelet compression issued by the JPEG Committee; it arose out of the need to harmonize the wavelet compression algorithm. JPEG 2000 uses a multilevel DWT with octave-scaled decompositions. JPEG 2000 is the new ISO standard for image compression commonly used to compress medical images. Part 1 of the standard provides the core coding

3.1 Types of Image Compression

There are 2 types of image compression: lossless compression (reversible) and lossy compression (irreversible) Run-length encoded (RLE) and the JPEG lossless compression algorithms are examples of lossless compression.In lossy compression, data are discarded during compression and cannot be recovered.Lossy compression achieves much greater compression than does lossless technique. Wavelet and higher-level JPEG are examples of lossy compression. JPEG 2000 is a progressive lossless-to-lossy compression algorithm.

3.2 Compression Algorithms

RLE, better known as the ZIP file format, is a simple way to compress runs of the same byte (a set of repeating values is called a run). A number is used to indicate multiple times the same data (for instance, aaaaaa is replaced by a6). Fewer bytes are needed to express the same thing. RLE is a simple lossless compression scheme, but it is limited to 2:1 or 3:1. RLE is most efficient with fewer levels of gray (that is, text).

system, specifying both lossy and lossless compression. Part 2 provides extensions to the standard useful for a variety of applications. For 3 dimensional data sets there are Part 2 extensions that allow for the use of several different types of decorrelating transformations in the third dimension. Specifically, wavelet transforms, linear transforms, and dependency transforms are all specified under Part 2. These multi-component transformations in Part 2 of JPEG 2000 can be effective in compressing volumetric datasets because the correlation between adjacent images can be exploited to achieve better compression than if each image were compressed independently. Set Partioning in Hierarchical Trees (SPIHT)is the wavelet based image compression method. it provides the Highest Image Quality, Progressive image transmission, Fully embedded coded file, Simple quantization algorithm, Fast coding/decoding , Completely adaptive, Lossless compression, Exact bit rate coding and Error protection. SPIHT makes use of three lists the List of Significant Pixels (LSP), List of Insignificant Pixels (LIP) and List of Insignificant Sets (LIS). These are coefficient location lists that contain their coordinates. After the initialization, the algorithm takes two stages for each level of threshold the sorting pass (in which lists are organized) and the refinement pass (which does the actual progressive coding transmission). The result is in the form of a bitstream.It is capable of recovering the image perfectly (every single bit of it) by coding all bits of the transform. However, the wavelet transform yields perfect reconstruction only if its numbers are stored as infiniteprecision numbers. Peak signal-to-noise ratio(PSNR) is one of the quantitative measure for image quality evaluation which is based on the mean square error(MSE) of the reconstructed image. The MSE for N x M size image is given by:

are applied on different medical images such as MRI , CT scan, Ultrasound and iris. Comparison of compression methods are done on the basis of Compression ratio and Compression quality. The following figure4.1 describes the implementation of Run Length Encoding method which shows original image and compressed image and also shows RLE implementation on MRI brain image

Figure 4.1 Compressed Image using RLE compression. The figure 4.2 shows the implementation of JPEG method on MRI .JPEG is lossy compression method The performance of JPEG coders generally degrades at low bit-rates

Where f (i,j) is the original image data and f ' (i,j) is the compressed image value. The formula for PSNR is given by:

Figure 4.2 Compressed Image using JPEG. The figure 4.3 describes the implementation of wavelet compression in MATLAB for MRI Images. Wavelet compression method based on discrete wavelet transform which involves the decomposition process , as we increase the decomposition level compression ratio increases.

4. Implementation
Compression methods mentioned in section 3 are implemented in MATLAB. These compression methods

Table 5.1 Comparison of RLE Compression

Images Ultrasound MRI CT scan Iris

Compression ratio 2.4 2.2 2.0 2.7

PSNR (db) 37.29 48.88 29.13 39.15

60

Figure 4.3 Compression

Compressed

Image

using

Wavelet

50 40 30 20 10 0
(In te st in e) M R I( br C ai T n) sc an (h ea d) Iri s (e ye s)

Compression ratio PSNR (db)

The figure 4.4 shows the original MRI image and reconstructed image by applying the SPIHT method. This shows the original and reconstructed image almost same as SPIHT compression method does not effect the image quality.

Table 5.2 Comparison of JPEG Compression

Images Ultrasound MRI CT scan Iris

U ltr as ou nd

Compression ratio 45.25 52.12 56.67 48.10

PSNR (db) 26.29 27.72 30.13 29.15

60 50

Figure 4.4 Compressed Image using SPIHT

40 30

Compression ratio PSNR (db)

5.Results
The results for all the compression methods are shown in tabular form and graphs are also shown which gives the precise results of compression methods on the basis of two parameters i.e. compression ratio and PSNR.

20 10 0
(In te st in e) M RI (b CT ra in sc ) an (h ea d) I ri s( ey es )

Ul tra so un d

Table 5.3 Comparison of Wavelet Compression Images Ultrasound MRI CT scan Iris Compression ratio 56.39 52.10 52.03 51.40 PSNR (db) 22.4 24.29 25.31 33.33

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Compression ratio PSNR (db)

the basis of two parameters compression ratio and compression quality. Our results illustrate that we can achieve higher compression ratio for MRI, Ultrasound , CT scan and iris images by SPIHT method. Furthermore we also observe that for MRI image wavelet compression method has higher compression ratio and has good PSNR value for iris image than JPEG method Compression ratio is almost same of iris and MRI image. For CT scan image JPEG compression method outperforms the PSNR and degree of compression than wavelet compression method. We also observe that although RLE is lossless method and keeps the image quality well but it can not be applied to medical images as it has very low compression ratio . For a lower compression ratio, JPEG yielded higher quality image than Wavelet. While the DCT-based image JPEG coders perform very well at moderate bit rates, at higher compression ratios, image quality degrades because of the artifacts resulting from the block-based DCT scheme. Wavelet-based coding on the other hand provides substantial improvement in picture quality at low bit rates because of overlapping basis functions and better energy compaction property of wavelet transforms. SPIHT is the most efficient method in respect of compression ratio and PSNR vale. With the increase in the degree of compression SPIHT keeps the image quality well.

br ai n) CT

te st in e)

RI (

(h e

sc an

(In

Table 5.4 Comparison of SPIHT Compression Images Ultrasound MRI CT scan Iris Compression ratio 98.53 99.20 97.19 97.50 PSNR (db) 30.61 39.85 35.47 37.11

Ul tra so un

I ri

ad ) (e ye s)

7. Future Work
In future this thesis can be extended by comparing compression methods that are mentioned in this thesis with the Image segmentation . Comparison can be made on the basis of memory space taken by Compressed image and Segmented image.Segmentation refers to the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple segments (sets of pixels) (Also known as superpixels). The goal of segmentation is to simplify and change the representation of an image into something that is more meaningful and easier to analyze. Image segmentation is typically used to locate objects and boundaries (lines, curves, etc.) in images. More precisely, image segmentation is the process of assigning a label to every pixel in an image such that pixels with the same label share certain visual characteristics.The goal of image segmentation is to cluster pixels into salient image regions, i.e., regions corresponding to individual surfaces, objects, or natural parts of objects.

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Ultrasound (Intestine) Iris (eyes) CT scan (head) MRI (brain) Compression ratio PSNR (db)

References
[1] A Breece Hill White Paper Medical Image Archiving An Integrated Approach, April 2005, (www.breecehill.com/products/documents/Medical_Archi ving).

6. Conclusion
In this thesis Comparative analysis of compression methods is carried out . Comparative analysis is done on

[2] David A. Clunie Lossless Compression of Grayscale Medical Images- Traditional and State of the Art .(Approaches.,www.dclunie.com/papers/spie_mi_2000_ compression). [3] S. Singh, V. Kumar. H. K. Verma , DWT-DCT hybrid scheme for medical image compression, Journal of Medical Engineering & Technology, Vol 31, Issue 2 , pp.109 122, March 2007 . [4] David A Koff, MD; Harry Shulman, MD, FRCPC, FACR An Overview of Digital Compression of Medical Images: Can We Use Lossy Image Compression in Radiology? Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal, Vol 57 , pp. 211-217, October 2006. [5] Se-Kee Kil, Jong-Shill Lee, Dong-Fan Shen, Je-Goon Ryu, Eung-Hyuk Lee, Hong-Ki Min, Seung-Hong Hong Lossless Medical Image Compression using Redundancy Analysis , IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, Vol.6 No.1A, pp. 50-57, January 2006. [6] Alexis Tzannes. Compression of 3-Dimensional Medical Image Data Using Part 2 of JPEG 2000 Property of Aware, Inc., 40 Middlesex Turnpike, Bedford, MA 01730. July 2003. (http://medical.nema.org/Dicom/minutes/WG04/2004/2004-02). [7] T. Kimpe, T. Bruylants , Y. Sneyders , R. Deklerck , P. Schelkens Barco Medical Imaging Systems Compression of medical volumetric datasets: physical and psychovisual performance comparison of the emerging JP3D standard and JPEG2000, 2007. (link.aip.org/link/?PSISDG/6512/65124L.