Effects of image preprocessing/resizing on diagnostic quality of compressed medical images chest radiographs application

摘要

The effect of prefiltering and resizing on the diagnostic quality of compressed images at various compression ratios is examined in this paper. A key object of the work is to get an insight on selecting an optimal combination of resolution and quantizer coarseness for a given ratio of compression of medical images. Test images were decimated by several decimation factors, and compressed to achieve a target file size. The decompressed images were assessed for their diagnostic quality. The authors' results demonstrate two things: (1) the higher sampling rates allow a quality margin that may offset the effects of subsequent quantization; and (2) gains in quality due to higher resolution levels may eventually be outstripped by the degrading effects of compression as the compression ratio increases. The result suggests a more gradual reduction in resolution would provide better control over loss of quality.