Radiological image compression: full-frame bit-allocation technique.

A full-frame bit-allocation technique has been developed for radiological image compression based on encoding the cosine transform of the image. Six different types of diagnostic images were used to examine this technique, and the results have been encouraging. Reconstructed images from compressed-image data with compression ratios of 4:1, 8:1, 12:1, and 16:1 did not have excessive visual degradation. It is concluded that this technique is suitable for diagnostic image compression.