A new progressive image transmission scheme based on content feature and Gaussian model of 2D gel electrophoresis images

The two-dimensional (2D) gel electrophoresis technique is used by biologists to separate complex protein mixtures. The digitized format of the 2D gel stored in a database offers the biologist a wider range of analytical research opportunities to find the key affecting the human health. However, the 2D gel image access on the Internet can be slowed by the network's bandwidth problem. In this paper, we propose a new content-based progressive image transmission scheme for the 2D gel images. The Gaussian model was used to transmit the contours of protein spots in the first phase. The differenced values of the original image from the contours were sliced by bit-planes and transmitted in nine other phases. Experimental results showed that the 2D gel image can be accurately identified after just a few phases. Biologists can quickly make a decision whether to keep or discard the image. A lot of time can be saved by not having to wait for the whole image to be transmitted.