title: Contrast-detail analysis of image degradation due to lossy compression.
abstract: A contrast-detail (CD) experiment was performed to study the effect of lossy compression on computed radiographic (CR) images. Digital CR images of a phantom were compressed by quantizing the full-frame discrete cosine transform and Huffman encoding the result. Since low-contrast detectability is directly linked to an important radiological task, namely, the detection of noncalcified pulmonary nodules in adult chest radiographs, the goal of the study was to quantify any loss in low-contrast detectability due to compression. Compression ratios varied significantly among compressed images, despite the use of fixed compression parameters; detectability could be specified by a single parameter of a CD curve; there was no significant reduction in detectability for an average compression ratio of 11:1; and, there was a statistically significant degradation in detectability for an average compression ratio of 125:1.
authors.affiliation: University of Kansas Medical Center, Department of Radiology, Kansas City 66160-7234, USA.
authors.forename: L T
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.forename: M F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Insana
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: McFadden
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.forename: G G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Cox
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D007834:Lasers; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008433:Mathematics; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital; D008961:Models, Structural; D015588:Observer Variation; D011859:Radiography; D011871:Radiology; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012586:Science; D013337:Students, Medical