Interactive and Adaptive Progressive Transmission of Medical Images

An interactive and adaptive joint source-channel coding for progressive transmission of medical images is proposed. This modality is favorable since the region of interest (Rol) is emphasized. The source compression rate is influenced by the proximity to the ROI, which includes significant diagnostic information. Also, the channel coding scalability is affected by both the ROI and the channel characteristics. Therefore both the source compression rate and the parity code length are jointly adapted to (1) the ROI, (2) the channel characteristics, and (3) the required rate or channel capacity. The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the design. The outcome of this project allows transmission of large medical images through narrowband mobile communication channels.