A medical image watermarking scheme based on dual-tree wavelet transform

A combined dual-tree transform wavelet (DT-CWT) and Bivariate Shrinkage for medical image watermarking is proposed in this paper. For this suggested approach, security issues for medical information and technical solution to protect these data in medical information are examined. A solution is proposed, which consisted in watermarking image areas that are not relevant for the diagnosis. The main part of this paper is devoted to exploit the exceptional quality of DTT combined with Bivariate Shrinkage with Local Variance Estimation at the extracted step of the watermark in the medical images. The experimental results showed much improved performance of the proposed technique for DT-CWT in comparison with DWT. The system is transparent to the user and allows image integrity control, in addition, it provide information on the location of potential alterations and evaluation of image modifications which is of major importance in medico-legal frame work. In addition the proposed scheme presented a flexible robustness against and favorably preserves the visual quality.

[1]  Michel Dumas,et al.  Tatouage d'images cryptées pour l'aide au télédiagnostic , 2001 .

[2]  Richard Baraniuk,et al.  The Dual-tree Complex Wavelet Transform , 2007 .

[3]  A. S. Tolba,et al.  Wavelet Packets-Based Blind Watermarking for Medical Image Management , 2010, The open biomedical engineering journal.

[4]  S. Mallat.  A wavelet tour of signal processing , 1998 .

[5]  H. Golpira,et al.  Reversible blind watermarking for medical images based on wavelet histogram shifting , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Signal Processing and Information Technology (ISSPIT).

[6]  I. Selesnick,et al.  Bivariate shrinkage with local variance estimation , 2002, IEEE Signal Processing Letters.

[7]  N. Kingsbury.  Image processing with complex wavelets , 1999, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

[8]  Teddy Furon,et al.  Application du tatouage numérique à la protection de copie , 2002 .

[9]  B. Planitz.  Medical Image Watermarking : A Study on Image Degradation , 2005 .

[10]  Ivan W. Selesnick,et al.  Video denoising using 2D and 3D dual-tree complex wavelet transforms , 2003, SPIE Optics + Photonics.

[11]  P. Loo,et al.  Digital watermarking using complex wavelets , 2000, Proceedings 2000 International Conference on Image Processing (Cat. No.00CH37101).

[12]  D-C Lou,et al.  Combined watermarking and fingerprinting technologies for digital image copyright protection , 2007 .

[13]  Driss Aboutajdine,et al.  A robust digital image watermarking method using Dual Tree Complex Wavelet Transform , 2008, 2008 IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications.

[14]  Nick Kingsbury,et al.  The dual-tree complex wavelet transform: a new technique for shift invariance and directional filters , 1998 .

[15]  Sotiris Pavlopoulos,et al.  A medical image watermarking scheme based on wavelet transform , 2003, Proceedings of the 25th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37439).

[16]  Dong-Chul Park,et al.  Medical Image Authentication Using Hash Function and Integer Wavelet Transform , 2008, 2008 Congress on Image and Signal Processing.

[17]  Nick G. Kingsbury,et al.  A dual-tree complex wavelet transform with improved orthogonality and symmetry properties , 2000, Proceedings 2000 International Conference on Image Processing (Cat. No.00CH37101).