ABSTRACT
Digital image acquisition, storage, processing, and display have become the dominant modalities for the electronic conveyance and manipulation of pictorial information. The representation of knowledge via digital still images or video sequences has become not only profitable commercially but also an object of popular demand and consumption. The data burden associated with digital imaging tends to grow supralinearly due to the continued development of high-resolution detectors and large-format image sensors such as multispectral, hyperspectral, and ultraspectral cameras. The ongoing development of digital image compression technology has provided mathematical transformations, implemented in software, that reduce the amount of image data prior to storage or transmission. Such compression transforms can be used to increase the effective bandwidth (or storage capacity) of communication (storage) devices. In response to this situation, this entry summarizes image compression research and development, with emphasis on history as well as techniques of current interest.
