GABOR FUNCTION-BASED MEDICAL IMAGE COMPRESSION

Compression methods based on Gabor functions are implemented for simul ated nuclear medicine liver images with and without lesions. The perfo rmance of the compression schemes is assessed objectively by comparing the original images to the compressed/reconstructed images through ca lculation of the Hotelling trace, an index that has been shown to corr elate well with performance for images from this imaging modality. For compression based on thresholding the complex Gabor coefficients, a b etter than 2:1 compression is obtained without appreciable reduction i n image quality, which, when combined with gains expected from bit red uction schemes, corresponds to an overall approximate 8:1 compression.