An irregular segmented region coding algorithm based on pulse coupled neural network(PCNN) is presented. PCNN has the property of pulse-coupled and changeable threshold, through which these adjacent pixels with approximate gray values can be activated simultaneously. One can draw a conclusion that PCNN has the advantage of realizing the regional segmentation, and the details of original image can be achieved by the parameter adjustment of segmented images, and at the same time, the trivial segmented regions can be avoided. For the better approximation of irregular segmented regions, the Gram-Schmidt method, by which a group of orthonormal basis functions is constructed from a group of linear independent initial base functions, is adopted. Because of the orthonormal reconstructing method, the quality of reconstructed image can be greatly improved and the progressive image transmission will also be possible. An irregular segmented region coding algorithm based on pulse coupled neural network (PCNN) is presented. PCNN has the property of pulse-coupled and changeable threshold, through which these adjacent pixels with approximate gray values ​​can be activated simultaneously. One can draw a conclusion that PCNN has the advantage of realizing the regional segmentation, and the details of original image can be achieved by the parameter adjustment of segmented images, and at the same time, the trivial segmented regions can be avoided. the Gram-Schmidt method, by which a group of orthonormal basis functions is constructed from a group of linear independent initial base functions, is adopted. Because of the orthonormal reconstructing method, the quality of reconstructed image can be greatly improved and the progressive image transmission will also be possible