Spatial domain-high capacity data hiding in ROI images

Digital watermarking, one of the data hiding techniques has become an emerging area of research due to the wide spread use of Internet and intranets. Though the watermark is used for authentication purpose, its methodology has been adapted for hiding data in many applications namely Electronic Patient Record (EPR) data hiding in medical images. Medical images are usually large sized images and stored without loss of redundancy. Recent researches have proven that appropriate level of JPEG (Joint Picture Expert Group) compression may be used on these image types without loss of diagnostic content. This has provided an opportunity for more rapid image transmission. This work focuses on the estimation of the data hiding capacity of Region of Interest (ROI) medical images and optimizing the JPEG survival level that allow acceptable JPEG compression for conventional spatial domain watermarking techniques namely LSB technique, Additive technique and Spread spectrum technique.