Compression of secondary ion microscopy image sets using a three-dimensional wavelet transformation

This article proposes a lossy three-dimensional (3-D) image compression met hod for 3-D secondary ion microscopy (SIMS) image sets that uses a separabl e nonuniform 3-D wavelet transform. A typical 3-D SIMS measurement produces relatively large amounts of data which has to be reduced for archivation p urposes. Although it is possible to compress an image set slice by slice, m ore efficient compression can be achieved by exploring the correlation betw een slices. Compared to different two-dimensional (2-D) image compression m ethods, compression ratios of the 3-D wavelet method are about four times h igher at a comparable peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR).