Lossy to lossless SPIHT-based volumetric image compression

A new coding scheme for lossy to lossless compression of volumetric data using a three-dimensional packet wavelet transform is presented. The need of a unitary transform via the integer lifting scheme and the performance comparison of different integer filter kernels is discussed. A state-of-the-art coder, set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT), is considered and modified in order to adapt its tree-structure to the 3D packet wavelet structure defined. The algorithm is extensively tested and shows very good performance, both for lossy and lossless coding.