Abstract: Brushlet is a novel tool for image directionality analysis, which is adopted in image fusion and texture classification successfully. A new SAR image compression algorithm is proposed, which is based on SPIHT coding of the Brushlet multi-direction decomposition coefficients. The encoding experiments on real SAR image demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the conventional wavelet-based methods. The higher PSNR is thus obtained. The detail of reconstructed SAR image can be well preserved and better visual effect can be achieved by SPIHT via Brushlet transform.