Open source algorithm for storage area and temporally optimized run length coding for image compression technology used in biomedical imaging

The objective of this paper is to prove the significance of the optimized run length coding algorithm for biomedical imaging technology and open source the idea behind the optimized algorithm in a comprehensive way. An optimized scheme for entropy encoding part of JPEG image compression by modifying the run length encoding method has been provided by the authors for a Space Research Program at Institute of Space technology (IST). The same has been observed to produce a large amount of saving in terms of memory required for Biomedical compressed images. In JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) image compression algorithm run length coding performs the actual compression by removing the redundancy from transformed and quantized image data. Using the fact that the preceding processes of run length coding produces a large number of zeros the original run length coding uses an ordered pair (a, b), where `a' is the length of consecutive zeros preceding the ASCII character `b'. The proposed run length encoding scheme removes the unintended redundancy by using an ordered pair only when a zero occurs. The proposed encoding scheme does not alter the PSNR value for the algorithm. Using Matlab simulation, the proposed scheme has been tested on various biomedical images over a range of quantization (quality) factor and the results confirmed the effectiveness of the new run length encoding scheme in reducing the run length encoded data size and processing time delay.