Image Compression

Abstract

Modern medical practice has a need for storing enormous amounts of data. In addition, special applications like telemedicine place special constraints on bandwidth requirements, or more simply put, on the amount of information that can be sent in a given period of time. Telemedicine uses telecommunications—that is, the transmission of medical images over standard telephone lines, with satellite connections, or over a local area network (LAN)—to transfer medical services and information from one location to another. This includes not only data from information systems and teleconferencing, but also images from teleradiology. Whenever there are space or bandwidth limitations, image compression should be considered. Images usually make up the bulk of medical data, so compressing them can greatly reduce space requirements.