A two-dimensional (2-D) wavelet-based electrocardiogram (ECG) data compression method is presented which employs a modified set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT) algorithm. This modified SPIHT algorithm utilizes further the redundancy among medium- and high-frequency subbands of the wavelet coefficients and the proposed 2-D approach utilizes the fact that ECG signals generally show redundancy between adjacent beats and between adjacent samples. An ECG signal is cut and aligned to form a 2-D data array, and then 2-D wavelet transform and the modified SPIHT can be applied. Records selected from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database are tested. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves high compression ratio with relatively low distortion and is effective for various kinds of ECG morphologies.

A 2-D ECG compression method based on wavelet transform and modified SPIHT

This paper presents an effective and efficient preprocessing algorithm for two-dimensional (2-D) electrocardiogram (ECG) compression to better compress irregular ECG signals by exploiting their inter-and intra-beat correlations. To better reveal the correlation structure, we first convert the ECG signal into a proper 2-D representation, or image. This involves a few steps including QRS detection and alignment, period sorting, and length equalization. The resulting 2-D ECG representation is then ready to be compressed by an appropriate image compression algorithm. We choose the state-of-the-art JPEG2000 for its high efficiency and flexibility. In this way, the proposed algorithm is shown to outperform some existing arts in the literature by simultaneously achieving high compression ratio (CR), low percent root mean squared difference (PRD), low maximum error (MaxErr), and low standard derivation of errors (StdErr). In particular, because the proposed period sorting method rearranges the detected heartbeats into a smoother image that is easier to compress, this algorithm is insensitive to irregular ECG periods. Thus either the irregular ECG signals or the QRS false-detection cases can be better compressed. This is a significant improvement over existing 2-D ECG compression methods. Moreover, this algorithm is not tied exclusively to JPEG2000. It can also be combined with other 2-D preprocessing methods or appropriate codecs to enhance the compression performance in irregular ECG cases.

An effective and efficient compression algorithm for ECG signals with irregular periods

Wavelet-based electrocardiogram signal compression methods and their performances: A prospective review

A 2-D ECG compression algorithm based on wavelet transform and vector quantization

Hybrid method based on singular value decomposition and embedded zero tree wavelet technique for ECG signal compression

An improved compression algorithm for ECG signals is presented using temporal alignment of beats and 2-D wavelet packet transform (WPT). This 2-D transform based approach utilizes the fact that the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals generally show two types of correlation, namely correlation between subsequent samples within each ECG cycle (intrabeat) and correlation between subsequent cycles (interbeat). One simple compression algorithm in the 2-D WPT domain, which is applied to some records in the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database shows lower percent root mean square difference (PRD) than 1-D wavelet based compression methods for the same compression ratio (CR).

K. Nayebi

Papers

A two dimensional wavelet packet approach for ECG compression