Scalable compression of 3D medical datasets using a (2D+T) wavelet video coding scheme

Nowadays the all-digital solution in hospitals is becoming widespread. The formidable increase of medical data to be processed, transmitted and stored, requires some efficient compression systems and innovative tools to improve data access, while ensuring a sufficient visualization quality for diagnosis. Medical image sequences can benefit from advanced video coding techniques when adapted to their specific constraints. Scalability, or the capability to partly decode a video bitstream and to get a reconstruction quality proportional to the decoded amount of information, is a key functionality. We have developed a video codec based on a 3D motion-compensated subband decomposition, which provides a combination of temporal, spatial and SNR scalabilities together with a very competitive compression ratio. We show that, when applied to medical sequences, it outperforms JPEG-2000 on coding efficiency aspects and offers new functionalities