Effective data compression of angiocardiographic static images with PABCEL method

The authors applied a new compression method, called the pseudogradient adaptive brightness and contrast error limitation (PABCEL) method, on single images coming from angiocardiographic films. The PABCEL algorithm aims at limiting the maximum difference of brightness between corresponding pixels of the original image and the reconstructed images on the Peano-Hilbert scan path. The authors applied the compression method to 168 images coming from 14 different angiocardiographic examinations. With the lowest threshold values a mean compression ratio of about 8:1 was obtained. Cardiologists did not identify significant differences between original images and reconstructed images. A qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the results has been carried out