High imperceptibility and robustness watermarking scheme for brain MRI using Slantlet transform coupled with enhanced knight tour algorithm

Abstract

This research introduces a novel and robust watermarking scheme for medical Brain MRI DICOM images, addressing the challenge of maintaining high imperceptibility and robustness simultaneously. The scheme ensures privacy control, content authentication, and protection against the detachment of vital Electronic Patient Record information. To enhance imperceptibility, a Dynamic Visibility Threshold parameter leveraging the Human Visual System is introduced. Embeddable Zones and Non-Embeddable Zones are defined to enhance robustness, and an enhanced Knight Tour algorithm based on Slantlet Transform shuffles the embedding sequence for added security. The scheme achieves remarkable results with a Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) evaluation surpassing contemporary techniques. Extensive experimentation demonstrates resilience to various attacks, with low Bit Error Rate (BER) and high Normalized Cross-Correlation (NCC) values. The proposed technique outperforms existing methods, emphasizing its superior performance and effectiveness in medical image watermarking.