Lossless compression of medical images based on gradient edge detection

In this paper, a novel predictive-based lossless image compression algorithm is presented. Lossless compression must be applied when data acquisition is important and expensive, as in aerial, medical and space imaging. Besides requirements of high compression ratios as much as it is possible, lossless image coding algorithms must be fast. Proposed algorithm is developed for efficient and fast processing of 12-bit medical images. Comparison with standardized lossless compression algorithm, JPEG-LS is done on a set of 12-bit medical images with different statistical features. It is shown that proposed solution can achieve approximately same bitrates as JPEG-LS even though it is much simpler.