Watermarking for Improving the Reduction-Expansion Process of Medical Images (WREPro)

Abstract

Medical image is an essential component of the patient file thanks to the rich information it provides to the physician. However, the large volume of this kind of images represents a problem for information storage or exchange via a tele-diagnostic platform. In fact, these images require sufficient storage space and bandwidth rate which are often limited. To deal with this problem, we propose a compression technique to reduce the image before its storage or its transmission. Moreover, this method permits to enlarge the processed image before being displayed while preserving a good quality to ensure a good diagnosis. We call this compression technique: "REPro" (Reduction / Expansion Protocol). Although several techniques of image reduction and expansion exist in the literature,. The assemblage mapping of the final image is inserted via watermarking in the emitted reduced image. The obtained results show that the proposed approach provides better conformity between the original and reduced-magnified images, which is valid for all tested medical images.