REPro.JPEG: a new image compression approach based on reduction/expansion image and JPEG compression for dermatological medical images

ABSTRACT

Medical images are known for their huge volume which becomes a real problem for their archiving or transmission notably for telemedicine applications. In this context, we present a new method for medical image compression which combines image definition resizing and JPEG compression. We baptise this new protocol REPro.JPEG (reduction/expansion protocol combined with JPEG compression). At first, the image is reduced then compressed before its archiving or transmission. At last, the user or the receiver decompresses the image then enlarges it before its display. The obtain results prove that, at the same number of bits per pixel lower than 0.42, that REPRo.JPEG guarantees a better preservation of image quality compared to the JPEG compression for dermatological medical images. Besides, applying the REPRo.JPEG on these colour medical images is more efficient while using the HSV colour space compared to the use of RGB or YCbCr colour spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Telemedicine
• archiving
• transmission
• medical images
• image compression
• JPEG
• image reduction
• image expansion
• colour spaces

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the European Union for financing this project as part of the servastic INTERREGIV program in collaboration with Swiss partners (Vaud University Hospital at Lausanne, and EPFL Lausanne) as well as Sfax and Besancon Universities for their agreement to allow the development of this transversal research work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.