This paper introduces a new ECG signal compression algorithm based on modulating
the ECG signal DWT coefficients with a proper mask constructed using the foveation
principle. The constructed mask is a selective mask that gives a high resolution at a certain
point (fovea) and falls down away from this point. The wavelet foveation of the ECG
signal leads to decreasing the amount of information contained in the signal. So, the value
of the foveated ECG signal Entropy will be decreased which by turn will increase the
Compression Ratio (CR).The ECG signal after wavelet foveation is coded using Huffman
codes; namely optimal selective Huffman coding, adaptive Huffman coding and modified
adaptive Huffman coding. The performance of each coding technique is measured based
on the CR, time cost and computational complexity.