Hybrid contourlet-DCT based robust image watermarking technique applied to medical data management

Abstract

This paper describes a non-blind, imperceptible and highly robust hybrid Medical Image Watermarking (MIW) technique for a range of medical data management issues. The method simultaneously addresses medical information security, content authentication, safe archiving and controlled access retrieval. We propose the use of Contourlet Transform (CLT) followed by the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to achieve higher robustness and imperceptibility. Experimental results and performance comparisons confirm the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.