Evolving improved transforms for reconstruction of quantized ultrasound images

State-of-the-art lossy compression schemes for medical imagery utilize the 9/7 wavelet. Recent research has established a methodology for using evolutionary computation (EC) to evolve wavelet and scaling numbers describing novel reconstruction transforms that outperform the 9/7 under lossy conditions. This paper describes an investigation into whether evolved transforms could automatically compensate for the detrimental effects of quantization for ultrasound (US) images. Results for 16:1, 32:1, and 64:1 quantization consistently demonstrate superior performance of evolved transforms in comparison to the 9/7 wavelet; in general, this advantage increases in proportion to the selected quantization level.