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1 The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG software | |
2 ========================================== | |
3 | |
4 README for release 6b of 27-Mar-1998 | |
5 ==================================== | |
6 | |
7 This distribution contains the sixth public release of the Independent JPEG | |
8 Group's free JPEG software. You are welcome to redistribute this software and | |
9 to use it for any purpose, subject to the conditions under LEGAL ISSUES, below. | |
10 | |
11 Serious users of this software (particularly those incorporating it into | |
12 larger programs) should contact IJG at jpeg-info@uunet.uu.net to be added to | |
13 our electronic mailing list. Mailing list members are notified of updates | |
14 and have a chance to participate in technical discussions, etc. | |
15 | |
16 This software is the work of Tom Lane, Philip Gladstone, Jim Boucher, | |
17 Lee Crocker, Julian Minguillon, Luis Ortiz, George Phillips, Davide Rossi, | |
18 Guido Vollbeding, Ge' Weijers, and other members of the Independent JPEG | |
19 Group. | |
20 | |
21 IJG is not affiliated with the official ISO JPEG standards committee. | |
22 | |
23 | |
24 DOCUMENTATION ROADMAP | |
25 ===================== | |
26 | |
27 This file contains the following sections: | |
28 | |
29 OVERVIEW General description of JPEG and the IJG software. | |
30 LEGAL ISSUES Copyright, lack of warranty, terms of distribution. | |
31 REFERENCES Where to learn more about JPEG. | |
32 ARCHIVE LOCATIONS Where to find newer versions of this software. | |
33 RELATED SOFTWARE Other stuff you should get. | |
34 FILE FORMAT WARS Software *not* to get. | |
35 TO DO Plans for future IJG releases. | |
36 | |
37 Other documentation files in the distribution are: | |
38 | |
39 User documentation: | |
40 install.doc How to configure and install the IJG software. | |
41 usage.doc Usage instructions for cjpeg, djpeg, jpegtran, | |
42 rdjpgcom, and wrjpgcom. | |
43 *.1 Unix-style man pages for programs (same info as usage.doc). | |
44 wizard.doc Advanced usage instructions for JPEG wizards only. | |
45 change.log Version-to-version change highlights. | |
46 Programmer and internal documentation: | |
47 libjpeg.doc How to use the JPEG library in your own programs. | |
48 example.c Sample code for calling the JPEG library. | |
49 structure.doc Overview of the JPEG library's internal structure. | |
50 filelist.doc Road map of IJG files. | |
51 coderules.doc Coding style rules --- please read if you contribute code. | |
52 | |
53 Please read at least the files install.doc and usage.doc. Useful information | |
54 can also be found in the JPEG FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) article. See | |
55 ARCHIVE LOCATIONS below to find out where to obtain the FAQ article. | |
56 | |
57 If you want to understand how the JPEG code works, we suggest reading one or | |
58 more of the REFERENCES, then looking at the documentation files (in roughly | |
59 the order listed) before diving into the code. | |
60 | |
61 | |
62 OVERVIEW | |
63 ======== | |
64 | |
65 This package contains C software to implement JPEG image compression and | |
66 decompression. JPEG (pronounced "jay-peg") is a standardized compression | |
67 method for full-color and gray-scale images. JPEG is intended for compressing | |
68 "real-world" scenes; line drawings, cartoons and other non-realistic images | |
69 are not its strong suit. JPEG is lossy, meaning that the output image is not | |
70 exactly identical to the input image. Hence you must not use JPEG if you | |
71 have to have identical output bits. However, on typical photographic images, | |
72 very good compression levels can be obtained with no visible change, and | |
73 remarkably high compression levels are possible if you can tolerate a | |
74 low-quality image. For more details, see the references, or just experiment | |
75 with various compression settings. | |
76 | |
77 This software implements JPEG baseline, extended-sequential, and progressive | |
78 compression processes. Provision is made for supporting all variants of these | |
79 processes, although some uncommon parameter settings aren't implemented yet. | |
80 For legal reasons, we are not distributing code for the arithmetic-coding | |
81 variants of JPEG; see LEGAL ISSUES. We have made no provision for supporting | |
82 the hierarchical or lossless processes defined in the standard. | |
83 | |
84 We provide a set of library routines for reading and writing JPEG image files, | |
85 plus two sample applications "cjpeg" and "djpeg", which use the library to | |
86 perform conversion between JPEG and some other popular image file formats. | |
87 The library is intended to be reused in other applications. | |
88 | |
89 In order to support file conversion and viewing software, we have included | |
90 considerable functionality beyond the bare JPEG coding/decoding capability; | |
91 for example, the color quantization modules are not strictly part of JPEG | |
92 decoding, but they are essential for output to colormapped file formats or | |
93 colormapped displays. These extra functions can be compiled out of the | |
94 library if not required for a particular application. We have also included | |
95 "jpegtran", a utility for lossless transcoding between different JPEG | |
96 processes, and "rdjpgcom" and "wrjpgcom", two simple applications for | |
97 inserting and extracting textual comments in JFIF files. | |
98 | |
99 The emphasis in designing this software has been on achieving portability and | |
100 flexibility, while also making it fast enough to be useful. In particular, | |
101 the software is not intended to be read as a tutorial on JPEG. (See the | |
102 REFERENCES section for introductory material.) Rather, it is intended to | |
103 be reliable, portable, industrial-strength code. We do not claim to have | |
104 achieved that goal in every aspect of the software, but we strive for it. | |
105 | |
106 We welcome the use of this software as a component of commercial products. | |
107 No royalty is required, but we do ask for an acknowledgement in product | |
108 documentation, as described under LEGAL ISSUES. | |
109 | |
110 | |
111 LEGAL ISSUES | |
112 ============ | |
113 | |
114 In plain English: | |
115 | |
116 1. We don't promise that this software works. (But if you find any bugs, | |
117 please let us know!) | |
118 2. You can use this software for whatever you want. You don't have to pay us. | |
119 3. You may not pretend that you wrote this software. If you use it in a | |
120 program, you must acknowledge somewhere in your documentation that | |
121 you've used the IJG code. | |
122 | |
123 In legalese: | |
124 | |
125 The authors make NO WARRANTY or representation, either express or implied, | |
126 with respect to this software, its quality, accuracy, merchantability, or | |
127 fitness for a particular purpose. This software is provided "AS IS", and you, | |
128 its user, assume the entire risk as to its quality and accuracy. | |
129 | |
130 This software is copyright (C) 1991-1998, Thomas G. Lane. | |
131 All Rights Reserved except as specified below. | |
132 | |
133 Permission is hereby granted to use, copy, modify, and distribute this | |
134 software (or portions thereof) for any purpose, without fee, subject to these | |
135 conditions: | |
136 (1) If any part of the source code for this software is distributed, then this | |
137 README file must be included, with this copyright and no-warranty notice | |
138 unaltered; and any additions, deletions, or changes to the original files | |
139 must be clearly indicated in accompanying documentation. | |
140 (2) If only executable code is distributed, then the accompanying | |
141 documentation must state that "this software is based in part on the work of | |
142 the Independent JPEG Group". | |
143 (3) Permission for use of this software is granted only if the user accepts | |
144 full responsibility for any undesirable consequences; the authors accept | |
145 NO LIABILITY for damages of any kind. | |
146 | |
147 These conditions apply to any software derived from or based on the IJG code, | |
148 not just to the unmodified library. If you use our work, you ought to | |
149 acknowledge us. | |
150 | |
151 Permission is NOT granted for the use of any IJG author's name or company name | |
152 in advertising or publicity relating to this software or products derived from | |
153 it. This software may be referred to only as "the Independent JPEG Group's | |
154 software". | |
155 | |
156 We specifically permit and encourage the use of this software as the basis of | |
157 commercial products, provided that all warranty or liability claims are | |
158 assumed by the product vendor. | |
159 | |
160 | |
161 ansi2knr.c is included in this distribution by permission of L. Peter Deutsch, | |
162 sole proprietor of its copyright holder, Aladdin Enterprises of Menlo Park, CA. | |
163 ansi2knr.c is NOT covered by the above copyright and conditions, but instead | |
164 by the usual distribution terms of the Free Software Foundation; principally, | |
165 that you must include source code if you redistribute it. (See the file | |
166 ansi2knr.c for full details.) However, since ansi2knr.c is not needed as part | |
167 of any program generated from the IJG code, this does not limit you more than | |
168 the foregoing paragraphs do. | |
169 | |
170 The Unix configuration script "configure" was produced with GNU Autoconf. | |
171 It is copyright by the Free Software Foundation but is freely distributable. | |
172 The same holds for its supporting scripts (config.guess, config.sub, | |
173 ltconfig, ltmain.sh). Another support script, install-sh, is copyright | |
174 by M.I.T. but is also freely distributable. | |
175 | |
176 It appears that the arithmetic coding option of the JPEG spec is covered by | |
177 patents owned by IBM, AT&T, and Mitsubishi. Hence arithmetic coding cannot | |
178 legally be used without obtaining one or more licenses. For this reason, | |
179 support for arithmetic coding has been removed from the free JPEG software. | |
180 (Since arithmetic coding provides only a marginal gain over the unpatented | |
181 Huffman mode, it is unlikely that very many implementations will support it.) | |
182 So far as we are aware, there are no patent restrictions on the remaining | |
183 code. | |
184 | |
185 The IJG distribution formerly included code to read and write GIF files. | |
186 To avoid entanglement with the Unisys LZW patent, GIF reading support has | |
187 been removed altogether, and the GIF writer has been simplified to produce | |
188 "uncompressed GIFs". This technique does not use the LZW algorithm; the | |
189 resulting GIF files are larger than usual, but are readable by all standard | |
190 GIF decoders. | |
191 | |
192 We are required to state that | |
193 "The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of | |
194 CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of | |
195 CompuServe Incorporated." | |
196 | |
197 | |
198 REFERENCES | |
199 ========== | |
200 | |
201 We highly recommend reading one or more of these references before trying to | |
202 understand the innards of the JPEG software. | |
203 | |
204 The best short technical introduction to the JPEG compression algorithm is | |
205 Wallace, Gregory K. "The JPEG Still Picture Compression Standard", | |
206 Communications of the ACM, April 1991 (vol. 34 no. 4), pp. 30-44. | |
207 (Adjacent articles in that issue discuss MPEG motion picture compression, | |
208 applications of JPEG, and related topics.) If you don't have the CACM issue | |
209 handy, a PostScript file containing a revised version of Wallace's article is | |
210 available at ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/wallace.ps.gz. The file (actually | |
211 a preprint for an article that appeared in IEEE Trans. Consumer Electronics) | |
212 omits the sample images that appeared in CACM, but it includes corrections | |
213 and some added material. Note: the Wallace article is copyright ACM and IEEE, | |
214 and it may not be used for commercial purposes. | |
215 | |
216 A somewhat less technical, more leisurely introduction to JPEG can be found in | |
217 "The Data Compression Book" by Mark Nelson and Jean-loup Gailly, published by | |
218 M&T Books (New York), 2nd ed. 1996, ISBN 1-55851-434-1. This book provides | |
219 good explanations and example C code for a multitude of compression methods | |
220 including JPEG. It is an excellent source if you are comfortable reading C | |
221 code but don't know much about data compression in general. The book's JPEG | |
222 sample code is far from industrial-strength, but when you are ready to look | |
223 at a full implementation, you've got one here... | |
224 | |
225 The best full description of JPEG is the textbook "JPEG Still Image Data | |
226 Compression Standard" by William B. Pennebaker and Joan L. Mitchell, published | |
227 by Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993, ISBN 0-442-01272-1. Price US$59.95, 638 pp. | |
228 The book includes the complete text of the ISO JPEG standards (DIS 10918-1 | |
229 and draft DIS 10918-2). This is by far the most complete exposition of JPEG | |
230 in existence, and we highly recommend it. | |
231 | |
232 The JPEG standard itself is not available electronically; you must order a | |
233 paper copy through ISO or ITU. (Unless you feel a need to own a certified | |
234 official copy, we recommend buying the Pennebaker and Mitchell book instead; | |
235 it's much cheaper and includes a great deal of useful explanatory material.) | |
236 In the USA, copies of the standard may be ordered from ANSI Sales at (212) | |
237 642-4900, or from Global Engineering Documents at (800) 854-7179. (ANSI | |
238 doesn't take credit card orders, but Global does.) It's not cheap: as of | |
239 1992, ANSI was charging $95 for Part 1 and $47 for Part 2, plus 7% | |
240 shipping/handling. The standard is divided into two parts, Part 1 being the | |
241 actual specification, while Part 2 covers compliance testing methods. Part 1 | |
242 is titled "Digital Compression and Coding of Continuous-tone Still Images, | |
243 Part 1: Requirements and guidelines" and has document numbers ISO/IEC IS | |
244 10918-1, ITU-T T.81. Part 2 is titled "Digital Compression and Coding of | |
245 Continuous-tone Still Images, Part 2: Compliance testing" and has document | |
246 numbers ISO/IEC IS 10918-2, ITU-T T.83. | |
247 | |
248 Some extensions to the original JPEG standard are defined in JPEG Part 3, | |
249 a newer ISO standard numbered ISO/IEC IS 10918-3 and ITU-T T.84. IJG | |
250 currently does not support any Part 3 extensions. | |
251 | |
252 The JPEG standard does not specify all details of an interchangeable file | |
253 format. For the omitted details we follow the "JFIF" conventions, revision | |
254 1.02. A copy of the JFIF spec is available from: | |
255 Literature Department | |
256 C-Cube Microsystems, Inc. | |
257 1778 McCarthy Blvd. | |
258 Milpitas, CA 95035 | |
259 phone (408) 944-6300, fax (408) 944-6314 | |
260 A PostScript version of this document is available by FTP at | |
261 ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/jfif.ps.gz. There is also a plain text | |
262 version at ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/jfif.txt.gz, but it is missing | |
263 the figures. | |
264 | |
265 The TIFF 6.0 file format specification can be obtained by FTP from | |
266 ftp://ftp.sgi.com/graphics/tiff/TIFF6.ps.gz. The JPEG incorporation scheme | |
267 found in the TIFF 6.0 spec of 3-June-92 has a number of serious problems. | |
268 IJG does not recommend use of the TIFF 6.0 design (TIFF Compression tag 6). | |
269 Instead, we recommend the JPEG design proposed by TIFF Technical Note #2 | |
270 (Compression tag 7). Copies of this Note can be obtained from ftp.sgi.com or | |
271 from ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/. It is expected that the next revision | |
272 of the TIFF spec will replace the 6.0 JPEG design with the Note's design. | |
273 Although IJG's own code does not support TIFF/JPEG, the free libtiff library | |
274 uses our library to implement TIFF/JPEG per the Note. libtiff is available | |
275 from ftp://ftp.sgi.com/graphics/tiff/. | |
276 | |
277 | |
278 ARCHIVE LOCATIONS | |
279 ================= | |
280 | |
281 The "official" archive site for this software is ftp.uu.net (Internet | |
282 address 192.48.96.9). The most recent released version can always be found | |
283 there in directory graphics/jpeg. This particular version will be archived | |
284 as ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz. If you don't have | |
285 direct Internet access, UUNET's archives are also available via UUCP; contact | |
286 help@uunet.uu.net for information on retrieving files that way. | |
287 | |
288 Numerous Internet sites maintain copies of the UUNET files. However, only | |
289 ftp.uu.net is guaranteed to have the latest official version. | |
290 | |
291 You can also obtain this software in DOS-compatible "zip" archive format from | |
292 the SimTel archives (ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/graphics/), or | |
293 on CompuServe in the Graphics Support forum (GO CIS:GRAPHSUP), library 12 | |
294 "JPEG Tools". Again, these versions may sometimes lag behind the ftp.uu.net | |
295 release. | |
296 | |
297 The JPEG FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) article is a useful source of | |
298 general information about JPEG. It is updated constantly and therefore is | |
299 not included in this distribution. The FAQ is posted every two weeks to | |
300 Usenet newsgroups comp.graphics.misc, news.answers, and other groups. | |
301 It is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/ | |
302 and other news.answers archive sites, including the official news.answers | |
303 archive at rtfm.mit.edu: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/jpeg-faq/. | |
304 If you don't have Web or FTP access, send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu | |
305 with body | |
306 send usenet/news.answers/jpeg-faq/part1 | |
307 send usenet/news.answers/jpeg-faq/part2 | |
308 | |
309 | |
310 RELATED SOFTWARE | |
311 ================ | |
312 | |
313 Numerous viewing and image manipulation programs now support JPEG. (Quite a | |
314 few of them use this library to do so.) The JPEG FAQ described above lists | |
315 some of the more popular free and shareware viewers, and tells where to | |
316 obtain them on Internet. | |
317 | |
318 If you are on a Unix machine, we highly recommend Jef Poskanzer's free | |
319 PBMPLUS software, which provides many useful operations on PPM-format image | |
320 files. In particular, it can convert PPM images to and from a wide range of | |
321 other formats, thus making cjpeg/djpeg considerably more useful. The latest | |
322 version is distributed by the NetPBM group, and is available from numerous | |
323 sites, notably ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/graphics/packages/NetPBM/. | |
324 Unfortunately PBMPLUS/NETPBM is not nearly as portable as the IJG software is; | |
325 you are likely to have difficulty making it work on any non-Unix machine. | |
326 | |
327 A different free JPEG implementation, written by the PVRG group at Stanford, | |
328 is available from ftp://havefun.stanford.edu/pub/jpeg/. This program | |
329 is designed for research and experimentation rather than production use; | |
330 it is slower, harder to use, and less portable than the IJG code, but it | |
331 is easier to read and modify. Also, the PVRG code supports lossless JPEG, | |
332 which we do not. (On the other hand, it doesn't do progressive JPEG.) | |
333 | |
334 | |
335 FILE FORMAT WARS | |
336 ================ | |
337 | |
338 Some JPEG programs produce files that are not compatible with our library. | |
339 The root of the problem is that the ISO JPEG committee failed to specify a | |
340 concrete file format. Some vendors "filled in the blanks" on their own, | |
341 creating proprietary formats that no one else could read. (For example, none | |
342 of the early commercial JPEG implementations for the Macintosh were able to | |
343 exchange compressed files.) | |
344 | |
345 The file format we have adopted is called JFIF (see REFERENCES). This format | |
346 has been agreed to by a number of major commercial JPEG vendors, and it has | |
347 become the de facto standard. JFIF is a minimal or "low end" representation. | |
348 We recommend the use of TIFF/JPEG (TIFF revision 6.0 as modified by TIFF | |
349 Technical Note #2) for "high end" applications that need to record a lot of | |
350 additional data about an image. TIFF/JPEG is fairly new and not yet widely | |
351 supported, unfortunately. | |
352 | |
353 The upcoming JPEG Part 3 standard defines a file format called SPIFF. | |
354 SPIFF is interoperable with JFIF, in the sense that most JFIF decoders should | |
355 be able to read the most common variant of SPIFF. SPIFF has some technical | |
356 advantages over JFIF, but its major claim to fame is simply that it is an | |
357 official standard rather than an informal one. At this point it is unclear | |
358 whether SPIFF will supersede JFIF or whether JFIF will remain the de-facto | |
359 standard. IJG intends to support SPIFF once the standard is frozen, but we | |
360 have not decided whether it should become our default output format or not. | |
361 (In any case, our decoder will remain capable of reading JFIF indefinitely.) | |
362 | |
363 Various proprietary file formats incorporating JPEG compression also exist. | |
364 We have little or no sympathy for the existence of these formats. Indeed, | |
365 one of the original reasons for developing this free software was to help | |
366 force convergence on common, open format standards for JPEG files. Don't | |
367 use a proprietary file format! | |
368 | |
369 | |
370 TO DO | |
371 ===== | |
372 | |
373 The major thrust for v7 will probably be improvement of visual quality. | |
374 The current method for scaling the quantization tables is known not to be | |
375 very good at low Q values. We also intend to investigate block boundary | |
376 smoothing, "poor man's variable quantization", and other means of improving | |
377 quality-vs-file-size performance without sacrificing compatibility. | |
378 | |
379 In future versions, we are considering supporting some of the upcoming JPEG | |
380 Part 3 extensions --- principally, variable quantization and the SPIFF file | |
381 format. | |
382 | |
383 As always, speeding things up is of great interest. | |
384 | |
385 Please send bug reports, offers of help, etc. to jpeg-info@uunet.uu.net. | |
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