Reversible Data Hiding for Embedding Capacity Enhancement

Having dealt with the first two important criteria for data embedding in medical images namely, robustness towards attacks and imperceptibility to human visual system, the third and final most important criterion is optimizing the data hiding capacity parameter. This is especially a very important criterion since it deals with medical data management. Embedding of data over digital images can combine the advantages of data security with efficient memory utilization. However, the embedding procedure will distort the images. This distortion may cause the modified medical images to be unable to use for further diagnosis. In addition to casting of watermarks, trying to interleave the patient information into the cover medical image may introduce more distortion which is quite not acceptable for medical images. Hence, establishing an optimal balance between embedding capacity and the image quality is of utmost importance. The reversible data hiding techniques are the solution for this problem.