<title>Performance visualization for image compression in telepathology</title>

Abstract

The conventional approach to performance evaluation for image compression in telemedicine is simply to measure compression ratio, signal-to-noise ratio and computational load. Evaluation of performance is however a much more complex and many sided issue. It is necessary to consider more deeply the requirements of the applications. In telemedicine, the preservation of clinical information must be taken into account when assessing the suitability of any particular compression algorithm. In telemedicine the metrication of this characteristic is subjective because human judgement must be brought in to identify what is of clinical importance. The assessment must therefore take into account subjective user evaluation criteria as well as objective criteria.This paper develops the concept of user based assessment techniques for image compression used in telepathology. A novel visualisation approach has been developed to show and explore the highly complex performance space taking into account both types of measure. The application considered is within a general histopathology image management system; the particular component is a store-and-forward facility for second opinion elicitation. Images of histopathology slides are transmitted to the workstations of consultants working remotely to enable them to provide second opinions.