Analysis-aware microscopy video compression

This article introduces an analysis-aware microscopy video compression method designed for microscopy videos that are consumed by analysis algorithms rather than by the human visual system. We define the quality of a microscopy video based on the level of preservation of analysis results. We evaluated our method with a bead tracking analysis program. For the same error level in the analysis result, our method can achieve 1,000× compression on certain test microscopy videos. Compared with a previous technique that yields exactly the exact same results by analysis algorithms, our method gives more flexibility for a user to control the quality. A modification to the new method also provides faster compression speed.