RE: Image Compression Software

[<aah@nofs.navy.mil>]

The posting that started the 'patented' discussion
was from Ron Baalke on the minor planet mailing list.
I quote it in its entirety below.
Arne
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From: Ron Baalke <baalke@zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 08:30:35 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: {MPML} New Technique Ramps Up Image Delivery Over The Web

University Communications
University of Wisconsin-Madison

May 31, 2001

New technique ramps up image delivery over the Web

With a little help from a pair of astronomers, the aggravation of
waiting -- and waiting and waiting -- for high-resolution images to
download to a computer could become a thing of the past. 

A newly patented software code developed by Jeffrey Percival, a University
of Wisconsin-Madison astronomer, and Richard White, an astronomer at the
Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, promises to speed up the
delivery of images over the Internet by orders of magnitude. 

The potential, according to Percival, is to have remotely delivered, high-
density images appear on computer screens 10 to 100 times faster. "The
niche that this technology fits," says Percival, "is if your images are
large compared to your bandwidth."

The technology, he says, could be especially useful for the growing number
of Internet users, such as scientists, publishers, engineers, libraries
and government agencies, who require high-density image delivery. 

The software delivers pictures so that only the most important information
is sent first, allowing the computer to rapidly build a quality picture.
The image improves over time as the vastly larger amount of less important
elements of the picture are transmitted. 

The software, says Percival, was born of the need of astronomers to send
by telephone line the high-density, excruciatingly detailed images taken
by modern telescopes. Increasingly, astronomers depend on observatories to
send over the Internet the images of stars, planets and galaxies captured
by telescopes in remote locations in the world. 

The patent for the technology was recently secured by the Wisconsin Alumni
Research Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation that manages technology
on behalf of UW-Madison faculty and staff.