Progressive image transmission for medical applications based on wavelet transform with a non-uniform scalar quantization scheme.

The Progressive Image Transmission (PIT) technique has been used to alleviate the communication problem related to transmit large volume of medical image data. In this study, we propose a novel PIT algorithm based on wavelet transform, DPCM coding and non-uniform scalar quantization. Experimental results have confirmed the efficiency of the proposed scheme. The achieved bit rate for the first recognizable picture can be as low as 0.05 bit/pixel transmitted in less than 1.0 second for a 512x512 256-gray scale medical image. The reconstructed image shows higher quality than that obtained by the Set Partitioning In Hierarchical Trees (SPIHT) algorithm, which makes it a winning choice for medical image transmission through low speed communication channels.