Quality preserved image data coding in angiography migration from cinefilm

One of the major objectives in angiocardiography is the visualization of anatomical details of a vessel segment of interest. The excellent resolution of the cinefilm can´t be reproduced by today´s digital systems. A universal compromise between image quality and strong data reduction is difficult to find. Here the authors propose the concept of image content descriptions as related parameters to be stored with(in) the image. The image frame is divided into regions of different medical significance allowing different degrees of data reduction and quality enhancement. This concept is illustrated by several examples: the 3D-reconstruction avoids unnecessary data, the motion compensated loop preserves the film resolution in critical regions, and the predictor-corrector postprocessor, tunes an arbitrary lossy compressor to become partially nonlossy in the most important regions of the image.