A Session Based Blind Watermarking Technique within the NROI of Retinal Fundus Images for Authentication Using DWT, Spread Spectrum and Harris Corner Detection

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel blind watermarking method for retinal fundus images using DWT, spread spectrum, and Harris corner detection, focusing on minimal impact NROI for secure medical image authentication.

Contribution

It presents a new approach for selecting the least impactful NROI and embedding watermarks using DWT and spread spectrum, ensuring imperceptibility and robustness in medical image authentication.

Findings

Watermarked images maintain high PSNR and correlation values.

The method effectively preserves medical image quality after watermarking.

Secure and imperceptible watermark embedding within retinal images.

Abstract

Digital Retinal Fundus Images helps to detect various ophthalmic diseases by detecting morphological changes in optical cup, optical disc and macula. Present work proposes a method for the authentication of medical images based on Discrete Wavelet Transformation (DWT) and Spread Spectrum. Proper selection of the Non Region of Interest (NROI) for watermarking is crucial, as the area under concern has to be the least required portion conveying any medical information. Proposed method discusses both the selection of least impact area and the blind watermarking technique. Watermark is embedded within the High-High (HH) sub band. During embedding, watermarked image is dispersed within the band using a pseudo random sequence and a Session key. Watermarked image is extracted using the session key and the size of the image. In this approach the generated watermarked image having an acceptable level of imperceptibility and distortion is compared to the Original retinal image based on Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and correlation value.