Wavelet-based lossless compression scheme with progressive transmission capability

Lossless image compression with progressive transmission capabilities plays a key role in measurement applications, requiring quantitative analysis and involving large sets of images. This work proposes a wavelet-based compression scheme that is able to operate in the lossless mode. The quantization module implements a new technique for the coding of the wavelet coefficients that is more effective than the classical zerotree coding. The experimental results obtained on a set of multimodal medical images show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the embedded zerotree coder combined with the integer wavelet transform by 0.28 bpp, the set-partitioning coder by 0.1 bpp, and the lossless JPEG coder by 0.6 bpp. The scheme produces a losslessly compressed embedded data stream; hence, it supports progressive refinement of the decompressed images. Therefore, it is a good candidate for telematics applications requiring fast user interaction with the image data, retaining the option of lossless transmission and archiving of the images. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 10,