[An algorithm of a wavelet-based medical image quantization].

The compression of medical image is the key to study tele-medicine & PACS. We have studied the statistical distribution of wavelet subimage coefficients and concluded that the distribution of wavelet subimage coefficients is very much similar to that of Laplacian distribution. Based on the statistical properties of image wavelet decomposition, an image quantization algorithm is proposed. In this algorithm, we selected the sample-standard-deviation as the key quantization threshold in every wavelet subimage. The test has proved that, the main advantages of this algorithm are simple computing and the predictability of coefficients in different quantization threshold range. Also, high compression efficiency can be obtained. Therefore, this algorithm can be potentially used in tele-medicine and PACS.