Wavelet coding of volumetric medical images for high throughput and operability.

This paper presents a new three-dimensional (3-D) wavelet-based scalable lossless coding scheme for compression of volumetric medical images. Aiming to improve the productivity of radiologists and the cost-effectiveness of the system, we strive to achieve high decoder throughput, random access to coded data volume, progressive transmission, and high compression ratio in a balanced design approach. These desirable functionalities are realized by a modified 3-D dyadic wavelet transform tailored to volumetric medical images and an optimized Rice code of very low complexity.