A Comparison of the DCT JPEG and Wavelet Image Compression Encoder for Medical Images

Compression is becoming very necessary in today's time especially in the medical field. The reason for this is that the current analog film based medical images are very difficult to manage and can be easily damaged if exposed to sunlight. Digital images are more reliable and easier to manage but occupy a lot of computer space. Compressed medical images occupy less space and can be easily transmitted over the network in lesser amount of time. In this paper two algorithms have been discussed: The JPEG DCT image compression and the JPEG wavelet compression. The algorithms have been compared on the values obtained for the Mean Square Error and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio. The results show that wavelet compression gives better quality for the same compression ratio in comparison to DCT compression.