Watermarking System for Medical Images Using Optimization Algorithm

Abstract

One of the main methods used to provide security for medical records when exchanging these records through open networks is digital watermarking. In order to preserve the privacy of patients, this system also requires a means to secure images. In this paper, a watermarking based on discrete wavelet transform (DWT), and discrete and discrete cosine transform (DCT) in cascade provides more robustness and security. DCT divides the image into low and high-frequency regions, watermarking message can be embedded into low-frequency regions to prevent distortion of the original image. DWT splits the image into four frequency coefficients; horizontal, vertical, approximation, and detailed frequency component. The judgment factors for the strength of the watermark system are robustness, invisibility, and embedded message capacity. Invisibility means transparency of the watermark logo or data in the original or host image without any distortion. Capacity data payload means the size of the embedded image which is related to the amount of data or logo size that will be embedded in the host image. Robustness refers to the capability of the watermark to stand with the host image operations. In this paper, we propose an optimizer to trade-off between robustness, invisibility, and message capacity. Three metrics were employed to assess the results achieved by the proposed approach, namely, Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC), and Image Fidelity (IF). The achieved results confirmed the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach for real-world digital watermarking applications.