INTERFRAME CODING OF MAGNETIC-RESONANCE IMAGES

This paper presents a new interframe coding method for medical images, in particular magnetic resonance (MR) images. Until now, attempts in using interframe redundancies for coding MR images have been unsuccess ful. We believe that the main reason for this is twofold: unsuitable i nterframe estimation models and the thermal noise inherent in magnetic resonance imaging (MRT). The interframe model used in this paper is a continuous affine mapping based on (and optimized by) deforming trian gles. The inherent noise of MRI is dealt with by using a median filter within the estimation loop, The residue frames are quantized with a z ero-tree wavelet coder, which includes arithmetic entropy coding. This particular method of quantization allows for progressive transmission , which aside from avoiding buffer control problems is very attractive in medical imaging applications.