A new watermarking technique for mammogram images copyright protection

Sulong, Ghazali; Hasan, Harith R; Hajiabdollah, Tina; Olisah, Chollette C.

Abstract

Recent advances in technology have enabled the digitization of medical images for easy retrieval. However, the retrieval process of digital medical image makes the image prone to illegal distortions and reproduction. In this regards, the confidentiality requirement for medical images must have to be ensured. In this paper, a new spatial domain-based watermarking technique for mammogram image copy right protection is proposed. In the proposed technique, the region of interest (ROI) and region of non-interest (RONI) in the mammographic images are detected using the Sobel edge operator. Afterwards, the image is partitioned into 16 blocks of the same size for determining the white pixels percentage values. Then, the bi-level intermediate significant bit (BiISB) that makes use of two levels of ISB bit-planes are applied for the watermark embedding and extraction. To verify the robustness and imperceptibility of the proposed technique, the normalized cross correlation (NCC) and the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) are measured. Experimental results show that the proposed technique is robust against image distortions such as median filter, Poisson, JPEG compression, rotation, contrast enhancement and motion blur. The proposed technique also shows to achieve imperceptibility of the mammogram image within the cover image.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 1, 2014
• Online Publication Date: May 25, 2014
• Publication Date: May 25, 2014
• Deposit Date: Mar 2, 2022
• Journal: Life Science Journal
• Print ISSN: 1097-8135
• Electronic ISSN: 2372-613X
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 102-108
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.7537/marslsj110514.14
• Keywords: Medical image; Watermarking; Spatial domain; Imperceptibility and Robustness
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9088876