Evaluation of Pure-Fractal and Wavelet-Fractal Compression Techniques

Image compression coders can be lossy or lossless. Fractal image compression is a lossy image compression technique to achieve high level of compression while preserving the quality of the decompressed image close to that of the original image. The method relies on the fact that in a certain images, parts of the image resemble other parts of the same image (self-similarity). In this paper we evaluate fractal techniques for image compression and investigate their ability to compress cDNA microarray images. Selfsimilarity is a typical property of fractals. In mathematics a self-similar object is an object that is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself. There exists high self-similarity in cDNA microarray images. This feature makes the images vulnerable to be compressed with the fractal methods. Two implementations of fractal (Pure-fractal and Waveletfractal image compression algorithms) have been applied on the cDNA microarray images in different configurations in order to investigate the compression ratio and corresponding quality of the images using peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR)..