Compression of digital chest x-rays

The application of digital technologies to chest radiography holds the promise of routine application of intage processing techniques to effect image enhancement. However, due to their inherent spatial resolution, digital chest images impose severe constraints on data storage devices. Compression of these images will relax such constraints and facilitate image transmission on a digital network. We have evaluated image processing algorithms aimed at compression of digital chest images while improving the diagnostic quality of the image. The image quality has been measured with respect to the task of tumor detection. Compression ratios of as high as 2:1 have been achieved. This compression can then be supplemented by irreversible methods.