Data compression
Saurabh, ece/06/144,electronics and communication department
Shri Balwant Institute of Technology, Sonepat
ece06144.sbit@gmail.com
Abstract— In computer science and information theory, data
compression or source coding is the process of encoding
information using fewer bits (or other information-bearing
units) than an unencoded representation would use, through
use of specific encoding schemes.
As with any communication, compressed data communication
only works when both the sender and receiver of the
information understand the encoding scheme. For example,
this text makes sense only if the receiver understands that it is
intended to be interpreted as characters representing the
English language. Similarly, compressed data can only be
understood if the decoding method is known by the receiver.
Compression is useful because it helps reduce the
consumption of expensive resources, such as hard disk space
or transmission bandwidth. On the downside, compressed data
must be decompressed to be used, and this extra processing
may be detrimental to some applications. For instance, a
compression scheme for video may require expensive
hardware for the video to be decompressed fast enough to be
viewed as it's being decompressed (the option of
decompressing the video in full before watching it may be
inconvenient, and requires storage space for the decompressed
video). The design of data compression schemes therefore
involves trade-offs among various factors, including the
degree of compression, the amount of distortion introduced (if
using a lossy compression scheme), and the computational
resources required to compress and uncompress the data.
Lossless versus lossy compression
Lossless compression algorithms usually exploit statistical
redundancy in such a way as to represent the sender's data
more concisely without error. Lossless compression is
possible because most real-world data has statistical
redundancy. For example, in English text, the letter 'e' is much
more common than the letter 'z', and the probability that the
letter 'q' will be followed by the letter 'z' is very small.
Another kind of compression, called lossy data compression
or perceptual coding, is possible if some loss of fidelity is
acceptable. Generally, a lossy data compression will be guided
by research on how people perceive the data in question. For
example, the human eye is more sensitive to subtle variations
in luminance than it is to variations in color. JPEG image
compression works in part by "rounding off" some of this
less-important information. Lossy data compression provides
a way to obtain the best fidelity for a given amount of
compression. In some cases, transparent (unnoticeable)
compression is desired; in other cases, fidelity is sacrificed to
reduce the amount of data as much as possible.
Lossless compression schemes are reversible so that the
original data can be reconstructed, while lossy schemes accept
some loss of data in order to achieve higher compression.
However, lossless data compression algorithms will always
fail to compress some files; indeed, any compression
algorithm will necessarily fail to compress any data containing
no discernible patterns. Attempts to compress data that has
been compressed already will therefore usually result in an
expansion, as will attempts to compress all but the most
trivially encrypted data.
In practice, lossy data compression will also come to a point
where compressing again does not work, although an
extremely lossy algorithm, like for example always removing
the last byte of a file, will always compress a file up to the
point where it is empty.
An example of lossless vs. lossy compression is the following
string:
25.888888888
This string can be compressed as:
25.[9]8
Interpreted as, "twenty five point 9 eights", the original string
is perfectly recreated, just written in a smaller form. In a lossy
system, using
26
instead, the exact original data is lost, at the benefit of a
smaller file size.
Applications
The above is a very simple example of run-length encoding,
wherein large runs of consecutive identical data values are
replaced by a simple code with the data value and length of
the run. This is an example of lossless data compression. It is
often used to optimize disk space on office computers, or
better use the connection bandwidth in a computer network.
For symbolic data such as spreadsheets, text, executable
programs, etc., losslessness is essential because changing even
a single bit cannot be tolerated (except in some limited cases).
For visual and audio data, some loss of quality can be
tolerated without losing the essential nature of the data. By
taking advantage of the limitations of the human sensory
system, a great deal of space can be saved while producing an
output which is nearly indistinguishable from the original.
These lossy data compression methods typically offer a three-
way tradeoff between compression speed, compressed data
size and quality loss.
Lossy image compression is used in digital cameras, to
increase storage capacities with minimal degradation of
picture quality. Similarly, DVDs use the lossy MPEG-2 Video
codec for video compression.
In lossy audio compression, methods of psychoacoustics are
used to remove non-audible (or less audible) components of
the signal. Compression of human speech is often performed
with even more specialized techniques, so that "speech
compression" or "voice coding" is sometimes distinguished as
a separate discipline from "audio compression". Different
audio and speech compression standards are listed under audio
codecs. Voice compression is used in Internet telephony for
example, while audio compression is used for CD ripping and
is decoded by audio players.
Examples of lossless compression
The Lempel-Ziv (LZ) compression methods are among the
most popular algorithms for lossless storage. DEFLATE is a
variation on LZ which is optimized for decompression speed
and compression ratio, therefore compression can be slow.
DEFLATE is used in PKZIP, gzip and PNG. LZW (Lempel-
Ziv-Welch) is used in GIF images. Also noteworthy are the
LZR (LZ-Renau) methods, which serve as the basis of the Zip
method. LZ methods utilize a table-based compression model
where table entries are substituted for repeated strings of data.
For most LZ methods, this table is generated dynamically
from earlier data in the input. The table itself is often Huffman
encoded (e.g. SHRI, LZX). A current LZ-based coding
scheme that performs well is LZX, used in Microsoft's CAB
format.
The very best compressors use probabilistic models, in which
predictions are coupled to an algorithm called arithmetic
coding. Arithmetic coding, invented by Jorma Rissanen, and
turned into a practical method by Witten, Neal, and Cleary,
achieves superior compression to the better-known Huffman
algorithm, and lends itself especially well to adaptive data
compression tasks where the predictions are strongly context-
dependent. Arithmetic coding is used in the bilevel image-
compression standard JBIG, and the document-compression
standard DjVu. The text entry system, Dasher, is an inverse-
arithmetic-coder.
Theory
The theoretical background of compression is provided by
information theory (which is closely related to algorithmic
information theory) for lossless compression, and by rate–
distortion theory for lossy compression. These fields of study
were essentially created by Claude Shannon, who published
fundamental papers on the topic in the late 1940s and early
1950s. Cryptography and coding theory are also closely
related. The idea of data compression is deeply connected
with statistical inference.
Many lossless data compression systems can be viewed in
terms of a four-stage model. Lossy data compression systems
typically include even more stages, including, for example,
prediction, frequency transformation, and quantization.
Image compression
Image compression is the application of data compression on
digital images. In effect, the objective is to reduce redundancy
of the image data in order to be able to store or transmit data
in an efficient form.
A chart showing the relative quality of various jpg settings
and also compares saving a file as a jpg normally and using a
"save for web" technique
Image compression can be lossy or lossless. Lossless
compression is sometimes preferred for medical imaging,
technical drawings, icons or comics. This is because lossy
compression methods, especially when used at low bit rates,
introduce compression artifacts. Lossless compression
methods may also be preferred for high value content, such as
medical imagery or image scans made for archival purposes.
Lossy methods are especially suitable for natural images such
as photos in applications where minor (sometimes
imperceptible) loss of fidelity is acceptable to achieve a
substantial reduction in bit rate. The lossy compression that
produces imperceptible differences can be called visually
lossless.
Methods for lossless image compression are:
• Run-length encoding – used as default method in
PCX and as one of possible in BMP, TGA, TIFF
• DPCM and Predictive Coding
• Entropy encoding
• Adaptive dictionary algorithms such as LZW – used
in GIF and TIFF
• Deflation – used in PNG, MNG and TIFF
• Chain codes
Methods for lossy compression:
• Reducing the color space to the most common colors
in the image. The selected colors are specified in the
color palette in the header of the compressed image.
Each pixel just references the index of a color in the
color palette. This method can be combined with
dithering to avoid posterization.
• Chroma subsampling. This takes advantage of the
fact that the eye perceives spatial changes of
brightness more sharply than those of color, by
averaging or dropping some of the chrominance
information in the image.
• Transform coding. This is the most commonly used
method. A Fourier-related transform such as DCT or
the wavelet transform are applied, followed by
quantization and entropy coding.
• Fractal compression.
The best image quality at a given bit-rate (or compression
rate) is the main goal of image compression. However, there
are other important properties of image compression schemes:
Scalability generally refers to a quality reduction achieved by
manipulation of the bitstream or file (without decompression
and re-compression). Other names for scalability are
progressive coding or embedded bitstreams. Despite its
contrary nature, scalability can also be found in lossless
codecs, usually in form of coarse-to-fine pixel scans.
Scalability is especially useful for previewing images while
downloading them (e.g. in a web browser) or for providing
variable quality access to e.g. databases. There are several
types of scalability:
• Quality progressive or layer progressive: The
bitstream successively refines the reconstructed
image.
• Resolution progressive: First encode a lower image
resolution; then encode the difference to higher
resolutions.
• Component progressive: First encode grey; then
color.
Region of interest coding. Certain parts of the image are
encoded with higher quality than others. This can be
combined with scalability (encode these parts first, others
later).
Meta information. Compressed data can contain information
about the image which can be used to categorize, search or
browse images. Such information can include color and
texture statistics, small preview images and author/copyright
information.
Processing power. Compression algorithms require different
amounts of processing power to encode and decode. Some
high compression algorithms require high processing power.
The quality of a compression method is often measured by the
Peak signal-to-noise ratio. It measures the amount of noise
introduced through a lossy compression of the image.
However, the subjective judgement of the viewer is also
regarded as an important, perhaps the most important,
measure.
Video compression
Video compression refers to reducing the quantity of data
used to represent digital video images, and is a combination of
spatial image compression and temporal motion
compensation. Video compression is an example of the
concept of source coding in Information theory. This article
deals with its applications: compressed video can effectively
reduce the bandwidth required to transmit video via terrestrial
broadcast, via cable TV, or via satellite TV services. Most
video compression is lossy — it operates on the premise that
much of the data present before compression is not necessary
for achieving good perceptual quality. For example, DVDs
use a video coding standard called MPEG-2 that can compress
around two hours of video data by 15 to 30 times, while still
producing a picture quality that is generally considered high-
quality for standard-definition video. Video compression is a
tradeoff between disk space, video quality, and the cost of
hardware required to decompress the video in a reasonable
time. However, if the video is overcompressed in a lossy
manner, visible (and sometimes distracting) artifacts can
appear.
Video compression typically operates on square-shaped
groups of neighboring pixels, often called macroblocks. These
pixel groups or blocks of pixels are compared from one frame
to the next and the video compression codec (encode/decode
scheme) sends only the differences within those blocks. This
works extremely well if the video has no motion. A still frame
of text, for example, can be repeated with very little
transmitted data. In areas of video with more motion, more
pixels change from one frame to the next. When more pixels
change, the video compression scheme must send more data to
keep up with the larger number of pixels that are changing. If
the video content includes an explosion, flames, a flock of
thousands of birds, or any other image with a great deal of
high-frequency detail, the quality will decrease, or the variable
bitrate must be increased to render this added information
with the same level of detail.
The programming provider has control over the amount of
video compression applied to their video programming before
it is sent to their distribution system. DVDs, Blu-ray discs,
and HD DVDs have video compression applied during their
mastering process, though Blu-ray and HD DVD have enough
disc capacity that most compression applied in these formats
is light, when compared to such examples as most video
streamed on the internet, or taken on a cellphone. Software
used for storing video on hard drives or various optical disc
formats will often have a lower image quality, although not in
all cases. High-bitrate video codecs with little or no
compression exist for video post-production work, but create
very large files and are thus almost never used for the
distribution of finished videos. Once excessive lossy video
compression compromises image quality, it is impossible to
restore the image to its original quality.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to acknowledge the contribution of our
lecturers for their help in creating this paper. College website
was referred for IEEE format of paper presentation.
REFERENCES
[1] ^ Korn, D.G.; Vo, K.P. (1995), B. Krishnamurthy, ed.,
Vdelta: Differencing and Compression, Practical
Reusable Unix Software, John Wiley & Sons
[2] www.Wikipedia.org
[3] www.sbit.in
[4] www.data-compression.com/