NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR IMAGE TRANSFER, COMPRESSION AND STORAGE

The foreseeable future of image storage and transfer is that all data will be manipulated in a digital format. Therefore, this article will review digital imaging concepts, current efforts towards standardizati on of software for image transfer, methods presently necessary to redu ce the massive data volumes to allow economic storage and transfer and finally, review the ultimate image transfer environment, telemedicine . I will discuss some important issues in regulation and legislation w hich will have a fundamental and dominant impact on how this technolog y is justified, distributed, utilized and sustained. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.