Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Motivation
- 2 Book overview
- 3 Principles of lossless compression
- 4 Entropy coding techniques
- 5 Lossy compression of scalar sources
- 6 Coding of sources with memory
- 7 Mathematical transformations
- 8 Rate control in transform coding systems
- 9 Transform coding systems
- 10 Set partition coding
- 11 Subband/wavelet coding systems
- 12 Methods for lossless compression of images
- 13 Color and multi-component image and video coding
- 14 Distributed source coding
- Index
- References
5 - Lossy compression of scalar sources
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Motivation
- 2 Book overview
- 3 Principles of lossless compression
- 4 Entropy coding techniques
- 5 Lossy compression of scalar sources
- 6 Coding of sources with memory
- 7 Mathematical transformations
- 8 Rate control in transform coding systems
- 9 Transform coding systems
- 10 Set partition coding
- 11 Subband/wavelet coding systems
- 12 Methods for lossless compression of images
- 13 Color and multi-component image and video coding
- 14 Distributed source coding
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
In normal circumstances, lossless compression reduces file sizes in the range of a factor of 2, sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less. Often it is acceptable and even necessary to tolerate some loss or distortion between the original and its reproduction. In such cases, much greater compression becomes possible. For example, the highest quality JPEG-compressed images and MP3 audio are compressed about 6 or 7 to 1. The objective is to minimize the distortion, as measured by some criterion, for a given rate in bits per sample or equivalently, minimize the rate for a given level of distortion.
In this chapter, we make a modest start toward the understanding of how to compress realistic sources by presenting the theory and practice of quantization and coding of sources of independent and identically distributed random variables. Later in the chapter, we shall explain some aspects of optimal lossy compression, so that we can assess how well our methods perform compared to what is theoretically possible.
Quantization
The sources of data that we recognize as digital are discrete in value or amplitude and these values are represented by a finite number of bits. The set of these discrete values is a reduction from a much larger set of possible values, because of the limitations of our computers and systems in precision, storage, and transmission speed. We therefore accept the general model of our data source as continuous in value. The discretization process is called quantization.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Digital Signal CompressionPrinciples and Practice, pp. 77 - 115Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011