Embedded Image Coding Using Zerotrees of Wavelet Coefficients for Visible Human Dataset

A lossless to lossy medical color image compression algorithm based on three-dimensional wavelet transform and zerotree coding (EZW) is presented. The algorithm (3D-CEZW) efficiently encodes color image volume by exploiting the dependencies in all three dimensions, decorrelating the original RGB color space to YCC color space, while enabling lossy and near lossless compression from the same bit stream and maintaining the fully embeddedness required by color image encoder. An application to visible human datasets shows that the 3D algorithm produces 3-5 dB higher PSNR than 2D algorithm. Compared to adaptive arithmetic coding, 3D-CEZW is superior in lossless compression which is desired for many medical applications