ABSTRACT
Due to advancements in technology and the availability of low cost image acquisition devices, the quantity of image data and transmission of this image data has increased rapidly. In the case of images and videos, file size is a major concern for storage as well as for transmission. There is a need to reduce the file size of images and videos. This chapter deals with the issues related to the reduction of image file size, known as image compression. While applying compression, if there is no loss of data then the techniques are known as lossless image compression techniques, otherwise the techniques are known as lossy compression techniques. The compression techniques reduce the redundancy of the images. Fundamentals of image compression and a number of basic image compression techniques are presented in this chapter. Various algorithms used to reduce redundancy in digital images are also given in this chapter.
