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| 1 IJG JPEG LIBRARY: SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE |
| 2 |
| 3 This file was part of the Independent JPEG Group's software: |
| 4 Copyright (C) 1991-2012, Thomas G. Lane, Guido Vollbeding. |
| 5 It was modified by The libjpeg-turbo Project to include only information |
| 6 relevant to libjpeg-turbo. |
| 7 For conditions of distribution and use, see the accompanying README.ijg file. |
| 8 |
| 9 |
| 10 This file provides an overview of the architecture of the IJG JPEG software; |
| 11 that is, the functions of the various modules in the system and the interfaces |
| 12 between modules. For more precise details about any data structure or calling |
| 13 convention, see the include files and comments in the source code. |
| 14 |
| 15 We assume that the reader is already somewhat familiar with the JPEG standard. |
| 16 The README.ijg file includes references for learning about JPEG. The file |
| 17 libjpeg.txt describes the library from the viewpoint of an application |
| 18 programmer using the library; it's best to read that file before this one. |
| 19 Also, the file coderules.txt describes the coding style conventions we use. |
| 20 |
| 21 In this document, JPEG-specific terminology follows the JPEG standard: |
| 22 A "component" means a color channel, e.g., Red or Luminance. |
| 23 A "sample" is a single component value (i.e., one number in the image data). |
| 24 A "coefficient" is a frequency coefficient (a DCT transform output number). |
| 25 A "block" is an 8x8 group of samples or coefficients. |
| 26 An "MCU" (minimum coded unit) is an interleaved set of blocks of size |
| 27 determined by the sampling factors, or a single block in a |
| 28 noninterleaved scan. |
| 29 We do not use the terms "pixel" and "sample" interchangeably. When we say |
| 30 pixel, we mean an element of the full-size image, while a sample is an element |
| 31 of the downsampled image. Thus the number of samples may vary across |
| 32 components while the number of pixels does not. (This terminology is not used |
| 33 rigorously throughout the code, but it is used in places where confusion would |
| 34 otherwise result.) |
| 35 |
| 36 |
| 37 *** System features *** |
| 38 |
| 39 The IJG distribution contains two parts: |
| 40 * A subroutine library for JPEG compression and decompression. |
| 41 * cjpeg/djpeg, two sample applications that use the library to transform |
| 42 JFIF JPEG files to and from several other image formats. |
| 43 cjpeg/djpeg are of no great intellectual complexity: they merely add a simple |
| 44 command-line user interface and I/O routines for several uncompressed image |
| 45 formats. This document concentrates on the library itself. |
| 46 |
| 47 We desire the library to be capable of supporting all JPEG baseline, extended |
| 48 sequential, and progressive DCT processes. Hierarchical processes are not |
| 49 supported. |
| 50 |
| 51 The library does not support the lossless (spatial) JPEG process. Lossless |
| 52 JPEG shares little or no code with lossy JPEG, and would normally be used |
| 53 without the extensive pre- and post-processing provided by this library. |
| 54 We feel that lossless JPEG is better handled by a separate library. |
| 55 |
| 56 Within these limits, any set of compression parameters allowed by the JPEG |
| 57 spec should be readable for decompression. (We can be more restrictive about |
| 58 what formats we can generate.) Although the system design allows for all |
| 59 parameter values, some uncommon settings are not yet implemented and may |
| 60 never be; nonintegral sampling ratios are the prime example. Furthermore, |
| 61 we treat 8-bit vs. 12-bit data precision as a compile-time switch, not a |
| 62 run-time option, because most machines can store 8-bit pixels much more |
| 63 compactly than 12-bit. |
| 64 |
| 65 By itself, the library handles only interchange JPEG datastreams --- in |
| 66 particular the widely used JFIF file format. The library can be used by |
| 67 surrounding code to process interchange or abbreviated JPEG datastreams that |
| 68 are embedded in more complex file formats. (For example, libtiff uses this |
| 69 library to implement JPEG compression within the TIFF file format.) |
| 70 |
| 71 The library includes a substantial amount of code that is not covered by the |
| 72 JPEG standard but is necessary for typical applications of JPEG. These |
| 73 functions preprocess the image before JPEG compression or postprocess it after |
| 74 decompression. They include colorspace conversion, downsampling/upsampling, |
| 75 and color quantization. This code can be omitted if not needed. |
| 76 |
| 77 A wide range of quality vs. speed tradeoffs are possible in JPEG processing, |
| 78 and even more so in decompression postprocessing. The decompression library |
| 79 provides multiple implementations that cover most of the useful tradeoffs, |
| 80 ranging from very-high-quality down to fast-preview operation. On the |
| 81 compression side we have generally not provided low-quality choices, since |
| 82 compression is normally less time-critical. It should be understood that the |
| 83 low-quality modes may not meet the JPEG standard's accuracy requirements; |
| 84 nonetheless, they are useful for viewers. |
| 85 |
| 86 |
| 87 *** System overview *** |
| 88 |
| 89 The compressor and decompressor are each divided into two main sections: |
| 90 the JPEG compressor or decompressor proper, and the preprocessing or |
| 91 postprocessing functions. The interface between these two sections is the |
| 92 image data that the official JPEG spec regards as its input or output: this |
| 93 data is in the colorspace to be used for compression, and it is downsampled |
| 94 to the sampling factors to be used. The preprocessing and postprocessing |
| 95 steps are responsible for converting a normal image representation to or from |
| 96 this form. (Those few applications that want to deal with YCbCr downsampled |
| 97 data can skip the preprocessing or postprocessing step.) |
| 98 |
| 99 Looking more closely, the compressor library contains the following main |
| 100 elements: |
| 101 |
| 102 Preprocessing: |
| 103 * Color space conversion (e.g., RGB to YCbCr). |
| 104 * Edge expansion and downsampling. Optionally, this step can do simple |
| 105 smoothing --- this is often helpful for low-quality source data. |
| 106 JPEG proper: |
| 107 * MCU assembly, DCT, quantization. |
| 108 * Entropy coding (sequential or progressive, Huffman or arithmetic). |
| 109 |
| 110 In addition to these modules we need overall control, marker generation, |
| 111 and support code (memory management & error handling). There is also a |
| 112 module responsible for physically writing the output data --- typically |
| 113 this is just an interface to fwrite(), but some applications may need to |
| 114 do something else with the data. |
| 115 |
| 116 The decompressor library contains the following main elements: |
| 117 |
| 118 JPEG proper: |
| 119 * Entropy decoding (sequential or progressive, Huffman or arithmetic). |
| 120 * Dequantization, inverse DCT, MCU disassembly. |
| 121 Postprocessing: |
| 122 * Upsampling. Optionally, this step may be able to do more general |
| 123 rescaling of the image. |
| 124 * Color space conversion (e.g., YCbCr to RGB). This step may also |
| 125 provide gamma adjustment [ currently it does not ]. |
| 126 * Optional color quantization (e.g., reduction to 256 colors). |
| 127 * Optional color precision reduction (e.g., 24-bit to 15-bit color). |
| 128 [This feature is not currently implemented.] |
| 129 |
| 130 We also need overall control, marker parsing, and a data source module. |
| 131 The support code (memory management & error handling) can be shared with |
| 132 the compression half of the library. |
| 133 |
| 134 There may be several implementations of each of these elements, particularly |
| 135 in the decompressor, where a wide range of speed/quality tradeoffs is very |
| 136 useful. It must be understood that some of the best speedups involve |
| 137 merging adjacent steps in the pipeline. For example, upsampling, color space |
| 138 conversion, and color quantization might all be done at once when using a |
| 139 low-quality ordered-dither technique. The system architecture is designed to |
| 140 allow such merging where appropriate. |
| 141 |
| 142 |
| 143 Note: it is convenient to regard edge expansion (padding to block boundaries) |
| 144 as a preprocessing/postprocessing function, even though the JPEG spec includes |
| 145 it in compression/decompression. We do this because downsampling/upsampling |
| 146 can be simplified a little if they work on padded data: it's not necessary to |
| 147 have special cases at the right and bottom edges. Therefore the interface |
| 148 buffer is always an integral number of blocks wide and high, and we expect |
| 149 compression preprocessing to pad the source data properly. Padding will occur |
| 150 only to the next block (8-sample) boundary. In an interleaved-scan situation, |
| 151 additional dummy blocks may be used to fill out MCUs, but the MCU assembly and |
| 152 disassembly logic will create or discard these blocks internally. (This is |
| 153 advantageous for speed reasons, since we avoid DCTing the dummy blocks. |
| 154 It also permits a small reduction in file size, because the compressor can |
| 155 choose dummy block contents so as to minimize their size in compressed form. |
| 156 Finally, it makes the interface buffer specification independent of whether |
| 157 the file is actually interleaved or not.) Applications that wish to deal |
| 158 directly with the downsampled data must provide similar buffering and padding |
| 159 for odd-sized images. |
| 160 |
| 161 |
| 162 *** Poor man's object-oriented programming *** |
| 163 |
| 164 It should be clear by now that we have a lot of quasi-independent processing |
| 165 steps, many of which have several possible behaviors. To avoid cluttering the |
| 166 code with lots of switch statements, we use a simple form of object-style |
| 167 programming to separate out the different possibilities. |
| 168 |
| 169 For example, two different color quantization algorithms could be implemented |
| 170 as two separate modules that present the same external interface; at runtime, |
| 171 the calling code will access the proper module indirectly through an "object". |
| 172 |
| 173 We can get the limited features we need while staying within portable C. |
| 174 The basic tool is a function pointer. An "object" is just a struct |
| 175 containing one or more function pointer fields, each of which corresponds to |
| 176 a method name in real object-oriented languages. During initialization we |
| 177 fill in the function pointers with references to whichever module we have |
| 178 determined we need to use in this run. Then invocation of the module is done |
| 179 by indirecting through a function pointer; on most machines this is no more |
| 180 expensive than a switch statement, which would be the only other way of |
| 181 making the required run-time choice. The really significant benefit, of |
| 182 course, is keeping the source code clean and well structured. |
| 183 |
| 184 We can also arrange to have private storage that varies between different |
| 185 implementations of the same kind of object. We do this by making all the |
| 186 module-specific object structs be separately allocated entities, which will |
| 187 be accessed via pointers in the master compression or decompression struct. |
| 188 The "public" fields or methods for a given kind of object are specified by |
| 189 a commonly known struct. But a module's initialization code can allocate |
| 190 a larger struct that contains the common struct as its first member, plus |
| 191 additional private fields. With appropriate pointer casting, the module's |
| 192 internal functions can access these private fields. (For a simple example, |
| 193 see jdatadst.c, which implements the external interface specified by struct |
| 194 jpeg_destination_mgr, but adds extra fields.) |
| 195 |
| 196 (Of course this would all be a lot easier if we were using C++, but we are |
| 197 not yet prepared to assume that everyone has a C++ compiler.) |
| 198 |
| 199 An important benefit of this scheme is that it is easy to provide multiple |
| 200 versions of any method, each tuned to a particular case. While a lot of |
| 201 precalculation might be done to select an optimal implementation of a method, |
| 202 the cost per invocation is constant. For example, the upsampling step might |
| 203 have a "generic" method, plus one or more "hardwired" methods for the most |
| 204 popular sampling factors; the hardwired methods would be faster because they'd |
| 205 use straight-line code instead of for-loops. The cost to determine which |
| 206 method to use is paid only once, at startup, and the selection criteria are |
| 207 hidden from the callers of the method. |
| 208 |
| 209 This plan differs a little bit from usual object-oriented structures, in that |
| 210 only one instance of each object class will exist during execution. The |
| 211 reason for having the class structure is that on different runs we may create |
| 212 different instances (choose to execute different modules). You can think of |
| 213 the term "method" as denoting the common interface presented by a particular |
| 214 set of interchangeable functions, and "object" as denoting a group of related |
| 215 methods, or the total shared interface behavior of a group of modules. |
| 216 |
| 217 |
| 218 *** Overall control structure *** |
| 219 |
| 220 We previously mentioned the need for overall control logic in the compression |
| 221 and decompression libraries. In IJG implementations prior to v5, overall |
| 222 control was mostly provided by "pipeline control" modules, which proved to be |
| 223 large, unwieldy, and hard to understand. To improve the situation, the |
| 224 control logic has been subdivided into multiple modules. The control modules |
| 225 consist of: |
| 226 |
| 227 1. Master control for module selection and initialization. This has two |
| 228 responsibilities: |
| 229 |
| 230 1A. Startup initialization at the beginning of image processing. |
| 231 The individual processing modules to be used in this run are selected |
| 232 and given initialization calls. |
| 233 |
| 234 1B. Per-pass control. This determines how many passes will be performed |
| 235 and calls each active processing module to configure itself |
| 236 appropriately at the beginning of each pass. End-of-pass processing, |
| 237 where necessary, is also invoked from the master control module. |
| 238 |
| 239 Method selection is partially distributed, in that a particular processing |
| 240 module may contain several possible implementations of a particular method, |
| 241 which it will select among when given its initialization call. The master |
| 242 control code need only be concerned with decisions that affect more than |
| 243 one module. |
| 244 |
| 245 2. Data buffering control. A separate control module exists for each |
| 246 inter-processing-step data buffer. This module is responsible for |
| 247 invoking the processing steps that write or read that data buffer. |
| 248 |
| 249 Each buffer controller sees the world as follows: |
| 250 |
| 251 input data => processing step A => buffer => processing step B => output data |
| 252 | | | |
| 253 ------------------ controller ------------------ |
| 254 |
| 255 The controller knows the dataflow requirements of steps A and B: how much data |
| 256 they want to accept in one chunk and how much they output in one chunk. Its |
| 257 function is to manage its buffer and call A and B at the proper times. |
| 258 |
| 259 A data buffer control module may itself be viewed as a processing step by a |
| 260 higher-level control module; thus the control modules form a binary tree with |
| 261 elementary processing steps at the leaves of the tree. |
| 262 |
| 263 The control modules are objects. A considerable amount of flexibility can |
| 264 be had by replacing implementations of a control module. For example: |
| 265 * Merging of adjacent steps in the pipeline is done by replacing a control |
| 266 module and its pair of processing-step modules with a single processing- |
| 267 step module. (Hence the possible merges are determined by the tree of |
| 268 control modules.) |
| 269 * In some processing modes, a given interstep buffer need only be a "strip" |
| 270 buffer large enough to accommodate the desired data chunk sizes. In other |
| 271 modes, a full-image buffer is needed and several passes are required. |
| 272 The control module determines which kind of buffer is used and manipulates |
| 273 virtual array buffers as needed. One or both processing steps may be |
| 274 unaware of the multi-pass behavior. |
| 275 |
| 276 In theory, we might be able to make all of the data buffer controllers |
| 277 interchangeable and provide just one set of implementations for all. In |
| 278 practice, each one contains considerable special-case processing for its |
| 279 particular job. The buffer controller concept should be regarded as an |
| 280 overall system structuring principle, not as a complete description of the |
| 281 task performed by any one controller. |
| 282 |
| 283 |
| 284 *** Compression object structure *** |
| 285 |
| 286 Here is a sketch of the logical structure of the JPEG compression library: |
| 287 |
| 288 |-- Colorspace conversion |
| 289 |-- Preprocessing controller --| |
| 290 | |-- Downsampling |
| 291 Main controller --| |
| 292 | |-- Forward DCT, quantize |
| 293 |-- Coefficient controller --| |
| 294 |-- Entropy encoding |
| 295 |
| 296 This sketch also describes the flow of control (subroutine calls) during |
| 297 typical image data processing. Each of the components shown in the diagram is |
| 298 an "object" which may have several different implementations available. One |
| 299 or more source code files contain the actual implementation(s) of each object. |
| 300 |
| 301 The objects shown above are: |
| 302 |
| 303 * Main controller: buffer controller for the subsampled-data buffer, which |
| 304 holds the preprocessed input data. This controller invokes preprocessing to |
| 305 fill the subsampled-data buffer, and JPEG compression to empty it. There is |
| 306 usually no need for a full-image buffer here; a strip buffer is adequate. |
| 307 |
| 308 * Preprocessing controller: buffer controller for the downsampling input data |
| 309 buffer, which lies between colorspace conversion and downsampling. Note |
| 310 that a unified conversion/downsampling module would probably replace this |
| 311 controller entirely. |
| 312 |
| 313 * Colorspace conversion: converts application image data into the desired |
| 314 JPEG color space; also changes the data from pixel-interleaved layout to |
| 315 separate component planes. Processes one pixel row at a time. |
| 316 |
| 317 * Downsampling: performs reduction of chroma components as required. |
| 318 Optionally may perform pixel-level smoothing as well. Processes a "row |
| 319 group" at a time, where a row group is defined as Vmax pixel rows of each |
| 320 component before downsampling, and Vk sample rows afterwards (remember Vk |
| 321 differs across components). Some downsampling or smoothing algorithms may |
| 322 require context rows above and below the current row group; the |
| 323 preprocessing controller is responsible for supplying these rows via proper |
| 324 buffering. The downsampler is responsible for edge expansion at the right |
| 325 edge (i.e., extending each sample row to a multiple of 8 samples); but the |
| 326 preprocessing controller is responsible for vertical edge expansion (i.e., |
| 327 duplicating the bottom sample row as needed to make a multiple of 8 rows). |
| 328 |
| 329 * Coefficient controller: buffer controller for the DCT-coefficient data. |
| 330 This controller handles MCU assembly, including insertion of dummy DCT |
| 331 blocks when needed at the right or bottom edge. When performing |
| 332 Huffman-code optimization or emitting a multiscan JPEG file, this |
| 333 controller is responsible for buffering the full image. The equivalent of |
| 334 one fully interleaved MCU row of subsampled data is processed per call, |
| 335 even when the JPEG file is noninterleaved. |
| 336 |
| 337 * Forward DCT and quantization: Perform DCT, quantize, and emit coefficients. |
| 338 Works on one or more DCT blocks at a time. (Note: the coefficients are now |
| 339 emitted in normal array order, which the entropy encoder is expected to |
| 340 convert to zigzag order as necessary. Prior versions of the IJG code did |
| 341 the conversion to zigzag order within the quantization step.) |
| 342 |
| 343 * Entropy encoding: Perform Huffman or arithmetic entropy coding and emit the |
| 344 coded data to the data destination module. Works on one MCU per call. |
| 345 For progressive JPEG, the same DCT blocks are fed to the entropy coder |
| 346 during each pass, and the coder must emit the appropriate subset of |
| 347 coefficients. |
| 348 |
| 349 In addition to the above objects, the compression library includes these |
| 350 objects: |
| 351 |
| 352 * Master control: determines the number of passes required, controls overall |
| 353 and per-pass initialization of the other modules. |
| 354 |
| 355 * Marker writing: generates JPEG markers (except for RSTn, which is emitted |
| 356 by the entropy encoder when needed). |
| 357 |
| 358 * Data destination manager: writes the output JPEG datastream to its final |
| 359 destination (e.g., a file). The destination manager supplied with the |
| 360 library knows how to write to a stdio stream or to a memory buffer; |
| 361 for other behaviors, the surrounding application may provide its own |
| 362 destination manager. |
| 363 |
| 364 * Memory manager: allocates and releases memory, controls virtual arrays |
| 365 (with backing store management, where required). |
| 366 |
| 367 * Error handler: performs formatting and output of error and trace messages; |
| 368 determines handling of nonfatal errors. The surrounding application may |
| 369 override some or all of this object's methods to change error handling. |
| 370 |
| 371 * Progress monitor: supports output of "percent-done" progress reports. |
| 372 This object represents an optional callback to the surrounding application: |
| 373 if wanted, it must be supplied by the application. |
| 374 |
| 375 The error handler, destination manager, and progress monitor objects are |
| 376 defined as separate objects in order to simplify application-specific |
| 377 customization of the JPEG library. A surrounding application may override |
| 378 individual methods or supply its own all-new implementation of one of these |
| 379 objects. The object interfaces for these objects are therefore treated as |
| 380 part of the application interface of the library, whereas the other objects |
| 381 are internal to the library. |
| 382 |
| 383 The error handler and memory manager are shared by JPEG compression and |
| 384 decompression; the progress monitor, if used, may be shared as well. |
| 385 |
| 386 |
| 387 *** Decompression object structure *** |
| 388 |
| 389 Here is a sketch of the logical structure of the JPEG decompression library: |
| 390 |
| 391 |-- Entropy decoding |
| 392 |-- Coefficient controller --| |
| 393 | |-- Dequantize, Inverse DCT |
| 394 Main controller --| |
| 395 | |-- Upsampling |
| 396 |-- Postprocessing controller --| |-- Colorspace conversion |
| 397 |-- Color quantization |
| 398 |-- Color precision reduction |
| 399 |
| 400 As before, this diagram also represents typical control flow. The objects |
| 401 shown are: |
| 402 |
| 403 * Main controller: buffer controller for the subsampled-data buffer, which |
| 404 holds the output of JPEG decompression proper. This controller's primary |
| 405 task is to feed the postprocessing procedure. Some upsampling algorithms |
| 406 may require context rows above and below the current row group; when this |
| 407 is true, the main controller is responsible for managing its buffer so as |
| 408 to make context rows available. In the current design, the main buffer is |
| 409 always a strip buffer; a full-image buffer is never required. |
| 410 |
| 411 * Coefficient controller: buffer controller for the DCT-coefficient data. |
| 412 This controller handles MCU disassembly, including deletion of any dummy |
| 413 DCT blocks at the right or bottom edge. When reading a multiscan JPEG |
| 414 file, this controller is responsible for buffering the full image. |
| 415 (Buffering DCT coefficients, rather than samples, is necessary to support |
| 416 progressive JPEG.) The equivalent of one fully interleaved MCU row of |
| 417 subsampled data is processed per call, even when the source JPEG file is |
| 418 noninterleaved. |
| 419 |
| 420 * Entropy decoding: Read coded data from the data source module and perform |
| 421 Huffman or arithmetic entropy decoding. Works on one MCU per call. |
| 422 For progressive JPEG decoding, the coefficient controller supplies the prior |
| 423 coefficients of each MCU (initially all zeroes), which the entropy decoder |
| 424 modifies in each scan. |
| 425 |
| 426 * Dequantization and inverse DCT: like it says. Note that the coefficients |
| 427 buffered by the coefficient controller have NOT been dequantized; we |
| 428 merge dequantization and inverse DCT into a single step for speed reasons. |
| 429 When scaled-down output is asked for, simplified DCT algorithms may be used |
| 430 that emit fewer samples per DCT block, not the full 8x8. Works on one DCT |
| 431 block at a time. |
| 432 |
| 433 * Postprocessing controller: buffer controller for the color quantization |
| 434 input buffer, when quantization is in use. (Without quantization, this |
| 435 controller just calls the upsampler.) For two-pass quantization, this |
| 436 controller is responsible for buffering the full-image data. |
| 437 |
| 438 * Upsampling: restores chroma components to full size. (May support more |
| 439 general output rescaling, too. Note that if undersized DCT outputs have |
| 440 been emitted by the DCT module, this module must adjust so that properly |
| 441 sized outputs are created.) Works on one row group at a time. This module |
| 442 also calls the color conversion module, so its top level is effectively a |
| 443 buffer controller for the upsampling->color conversion buffer. However, in |
| 444 all but the highest-quality operating modes, upsampling and color |
| 445 conversion are likely to be merged into a single step. |
| 446 |
| 447 * Colorspace conversion: convert from JPEG color space to output color space, |
| 448 and change data layout from separate component planes to pixel-interleaved. |
| 449 Works on one pixel row at a time. |
| 450 |
| 451 * Color quantization: reduce the data to colormapped form, using either an |
| 452 externally specified colormap or an internally generated one. This module |
| 453 is not used for full-color output. Works on one pixel row at a time; may |
| 454 require two passes to generate a color map. Note that the output will |
| 455 always be a single component representing colormap indexes. In the current |
| 456 design, the output values are JSAMPLEs, so an 8-bit compilation cannot |
| 457 quantize to more than 256 colors. This is unlikely to be a problem in |
| 458 practice. |
| 459 |
| 460 * Color reduction: this module handles color precision reduction, e.g., |
| 461 generating 15-bit color (5 bits/primary) from JPEG's 24-bit output. |
| 462 Not quite clear yet how this should be handled... should we merge it with |
| 463 colorspace conversion??? |
| 464 |
| 465 Note that some high-speed operating modes might condense the entire |
| 466 postprocessing sequence to a single module (upsample, color convert, and |
| 467 quantize in one step). |
| 468 |
| 469 In addition to the above objects, the decompression library includes these |
| 470 objects: |
| 471 |
| 472 * Master control: determines the number of passes required, controls overall |
| 473 and per-pass initialization of the other modules. This is subdivided into |
| 474 input and output control: jdinput.c controls only input-side processing, |
| 475 while jdmaster.c handles overall initialization and output-side control. |
| 476 |
| 477 * Marker reading: decodes JPEG markers (except for RSTn). |
| 478 |
| 479 * Data source manager: supplies the input JPEG datastream. The source |
| 480 manager supplied with the library knows how to read from a stdio stream |
| 481 or from a memory buffer; for other behaviors, the surrounding application |
| 482 may provide its own source manager. |
| 483 |
| 484 * Memory manager: same as for compression library. |
| 485 |
| 486 * Error handler: same as for compression library. |
| 487 |
| 488 * Progress monitor: same as for compression library. |
| 489 |
| 490 As with compression, the data source manager, error handler, and progress |
| 491 monitor are candidates for replacement by a surrounding application. |
| 492 |
| 493 |
| 494 *** Decompression input and output separation *** |
| 495 |
| 496 To support efficient incremental display of progressive JPEG files, the |
| 497 decompressor is divided into two sections that can run independently: |
| 498 |
| 499 1. Data input includes marker parsing, entropy decoding, and input into the |
| 500 coefficient controller's DCT coefficient buffer. Note that this |
| 501 processing is relatively cheap and fast. |
| 502 |
| 503 2. Data output reads from the DCT coefficient buffer and performs the IDCT |
| 504 and all postprocessing steps. |
| 505 |
| 506 For a progressive JPEG file, the data input processing is allowed to get |
| 507 arbitrarily far ahead of the data output processing. (This occurs only |
| 508 if the application calls jpeg_consume_input(); otherwise input and output |
| 509 run in lockstep, since the input section is called only when the output |
| 510 section needs more data.) In this way the application can avoid making |
| 511 extra display passes when data is arriving faster than the display pass |
| 512 can run. Furthermore, it is possible to abort an output pass without |
| 513 losing anything, since the coefficient buffer is read-only as far as the |
| 514 output section is concerned. See libjpeg.txt for more detail. |
| 515 |
| 516 A full-image coefficient array is only created if the JPEG file has multiple |
| 517 scans (or if the application specifies buffered-image mode anyway). When |
| 518 reading a single-scan file, the coefficient controller normally creates only |
| 519 a one-MCU buffer, so input and output processing must run in lockstep in this |
| 520 case. jpeg_consume_input() is effectively a no-op in this situation. |
| 521 |
| 522 The main impact of dividing the decompressor in this fashion is that we must |
| 523 be very careful with shared variables in the cinfo data structure. Each |
| 524 variable that can change during the course of decompression must be |
| 525 classified as belonging to data input or data output, and each section must |
| 526 look only at its own variables. For example, the data output section may not |
| 527 depend on any of the variables that describe the current scan in the JPEG |
| 528 file, because these may change as the data input section advances into a new |
| 529 scan. |
| 530 |
| 531 The progress monitor is (somewhat arbitrarily) defined to treat input of the |
| 532 file as one pass when buffered-image mode is not used, and to ignore data |
| 533 input work completely when buffered-image mode is used. Note that the |
| 534 library has no reliable way to predict the number of passes when dealing |
| 535 with a progressive JPEG file, nor can it predict the number of output passes |
| 536 in buffered-image mode. So the work estimate is inherently bogus anyway. |
| 537 |
| 538 No comparable division is currently made in the compression library, because |
| 539 there isn't any real need for it. |
| 540 |
| 541 |
| 542 *** Data formats *** |
| 543 |
| 544 Arrays of pixel sample values use the following data structure: |
| 545 |
| 546 typedef something JSAMPLE; a pixel component value, 0..MAXJSAMPLE |
| 547 typedef JSAMPLE *JSAMPROW; ptr to a row of samples |
| 548 typedef JSAMPROW *JSAMPARRAY; ptr to a list of rows |
| 549 typedef JSAMPARRAY *JSAMPIMAGE; ptr to a list of color-component arrays |
| 550 |
| 551 The basic element type JSAMPLE will typically be one of unsigned char, |
| 552 (signed) char, or short. Short will be used if samples wider than 8 bits are |
| 553 to be supported (this is a compile-time option). Otherwise, unsigned char is |
| 554 used if possible. If the compiler only supports signed chars, then it is |
| 555 necessary to mask off the value when reading. Thus, all reads of JSAMPLE |
| 556 values must be coded as "GETJSAMPLE(value)", where the macro will be defined |
| 557 as "((value) & 0xFF)" on signed-char machines and "((int) (value))" elsewhere. |
| 558 |
| 559 With these conventions, JSAMPLE values can be assumed to be >= 0. This helps |
| 560 simplify correct rounding during downsampling, etc. The JPEG standard's |
| 561 specification that sample values run from -128..127 is accommodated by |
| 562 subtracting 128 from the sample value in the DCT step. Similarly, during |
| 563 decompression the output of the IDCT step will be immediately shifted back to |
| 564 0..255. (NB: different values are required when 12-bit samples are in use. |
| 565 The code is written in terms of MAXJSAMPLE and CENTERJSAMPLE, which will be |
| 566 defined as 255 and 128 respectively in an 8-bit implementation, and as 4095 |
| 567 and 2048 in a 12-bit implementation.) |
| 568 |
| 569 We use a pointer per row, rather than a two-dimensional JSAMPLE array. This |
| 570 choice costs only a small amount of memory and has several benefits: |
| 571 * Code using the data structure doesn't need to know the allocated width of |
| 572 the rows. This simplifies edge expansion/compression, since we can work |
| 573 in an array that's wider than the logical picture width. |
| 574 * Indexing doesn't require multiplication; this is a performance win on many |
| 575 machines. |
| 576 * Arrays with more than 64K total elements can be supported even on machines |
| 577 where malloc() cannot allocate chunks larger than 64K. |
| 578 * The rows forming a component array may be allocated at different times |
| 579 without extra copying. This trick allows some speedups in smoothing steps |
| 580 that need access to the previous and next rows. |
| 581 |
| 582 Note that each color component is stored in a separate array; we don't use the |
| 583 traditional layout in which the components of a pixel are stored together. |
| 584 This simplifies coding of modules that work on each component independently, |
| 585 because they don't need to know how many components there are. Furthermore, |
| 586 we can read or write each component to a temporary file independently, which |
| 587 is helpful when dealing with noninterleaved JPEG files. |
| 588 |
| 589 In general, a specific sample value is accessed by code such as |
| 590 GETJSAMPLE(image[colorcomponent][row][col]) |
| 591 where col is measured from the image left edge, but row is measured from the |
| 592 first sample row currently in memory. Either of the first two indexings can |
| 593 be precomputed by copying the relevant pointer. |
| 594 |
| 595 |
| 596 Since most image-processing applications prefer to work on images in which |
| 597 the components of a pixel are stored together, the data passed to or from the |
| 598 surrounding application uses the traditional convention: a single pixel is |
| 599 represented by N consecutive JSAMPLE values, and an image row is an array of |
| 600 (# of color components)*(image width) JSAMPLEs. One or more rows of data can |
| 601 be represented by a pointer of type JSAMPARRAY in this scheme. This scheme is |
| 602 converted to component-wise storage inside the JPEG library. (Applications |
| 603 that want to skip JPEG preprocessing or postprocessing will have to contend |
| 604 with component-wise storage.) |
| 605 |
| 606 |
| 607 Arrays of DCT-coefficient values use the following data structure: |
| 608 |
| 609 typedef short JCOEF; a 16-bit signed integer |
| 610 typedef JCOEF JBLOCK[DCTSIZE2]; an 8x8 block of coefficients |
| 611 typedef JBLOCK *JBLOCKROW; ptr to one horizontal row of 8x8 blocks |
| 612 typedef JBLOCKROW *JBLOCKARRAY; ptr to a list of such rows |
| 613 typedef JBLOCKARRAY *JBLOCKIMAGE; ptr to a list of color component arrays |
| 614 |
| 615 The underlying type is at least a 16-bit signed integer; while "short" is big |
| 616 enough on all machines of interest, on some machines it is preferable to use |
| 617 "int" for speed reasons, despite the storage cost. Coefficients are grouped |
| 618 into 8x8 blocks (but we always use #defines DCTSIZE and DCTSIZE2 rather than |
| 619 "8" and "64"). |
| 620 |
| 621 The contents of a coefficient block may be in either "natural" or zigzagged |
| 622 order, and may be true values or divided by the quantization coefficients, |
| 623 depending on where the block is in the processing pipeline. In the current |
| 624 library, coefficient blocks are kept in natural order everywhere; the entropy |
| 625 codecs zigzag or dezigzag the data as it is written or read. The blocks |
| 626 contain quantized coefficients everywhere outside the DCT/IDCT subsystems. |
| 627 (This latter decision may need to be revisited to support variable |
| 628 quantization a la JPEG Part 3.) |
| 629 |
| 630 Notice that the allocation unit is now a row of 8x8 blocks, corresponding to |
| 631 eight rows of samples. Otherwise the structure is much the same as for |
| 632 samples, and for the same reasons. |
| 633 |
| 634 |
| 635 *** Suspendable processing *** |
| 636 |
| 637 In some applications it is desirable to use the JPEG library as an |
| 638 incremental, memory-to-memory filter. In this situation the data source or |
| 639 destination may be a limited-size buffer, and we can't rely on being able to |
| 640 empty or refill the buffer at arbitrary times. Instead the application would |
| 641 like to have control return from the library at buffer overflow/underrun, and |
| 642 then resume compression or decompression at a later time. |
| 643 |
| 644 This scenario is supported for simple cases. (For anything more complex, we |
| 645 recommend that the application "bite the bullet" and develop real multitasking |
| 646 capability.) The libjpeg.txt file goes into more detail about the usage and |
| 647 limitations of this capability; here we address the implications for library |
| 648 structure. |
| 649 |
| 650 The essence of the problem is that the entropy codec (coder or decoder) must |
| 651 be prepared to stop at arbitrary times. In turn, the controllers that call |
| 652 the entropy codec must be able to stop before having produced or consumed all |
| 653 the data that they normally would handle in one call. That part is reasonably |
| 654 straightforward: we make the controller call interfaces include "progress |
| 655 counters" which indicate the number of data chunks successfully processed, and |
| 656 we require callers to test the counter rather than just assume all of the data |
| 657 was processed. |
| 658 |
| 659 Rather than trying to restart at an arbitrary point, the current Huffman |
| 660 codecs are designed to restart at the beginning of the current MCU after a |
| 661 suspension due to buffer overflow/underrun. At the start of each call, the |
| 662 codec's internal state is loaded from permanent storage (in the JPEG object |
| 663 structures) into local variables. On successful completion of the MCU, the |
| 664 permanent state is updated. (This copying is not very expensive, and may even |
| 665 lead to *improved* performance if the local variables can be registerized.) |
| 666 If a suspension occurs, the codec simply returns without updating the state, |
| 667 thus effectively reverting to the start of the MCU. Note that this implies |
| 668 leaving some data unprocessed in the source/destination buffer (ie, the |
| 669 compressed partial MCU). The data source/destination module interfaces are |
| 670 specified so as to make this possible. This also implies that the data buffer |
| 671 must be large enough to hold a worst-case compressed MCU; a couple thousand |
| 672 bytes should be enough. |
| 673 |
| 674 In a successive-approximation AC refinement scan, the progressive Huffman |
| 675 decoder has to be able to undo assignments of newly nonzero coefficients if it |
| 676 suspends before the MCU is complete, since decoding requires distinguishing |
| 677 previously-zero and previously-nonzero coefficients. This is a bit tedious |
| 678 but probably won't have much effect on performance. Other variants of Huffman |
| 679 decoding need not worry about this, since they will just store the same values |
| 680 again if forced to repeat the MCU. |
| 681 |
| 682 This approach would probably not work for an arithmetic codec, since its |
| 683 modifiable state is quite large and couldn't be copied cheaply. Instead it |
| 684 would have to suspend and resume exactly at the point of the buffer end. |
| 685 |
| 686 The JPEG marker reader is designed to cope with suspension at an arbitrary |
| 687 point. It does so by backing up to the start of the marker parameter segment, |
| 688 so the data buffer must be big enough to hold the largest marker of interest. |
| 689 Again, a couple KB should be adequate. (A special "skip" convention is used |
| 690 to bypass COM and APPn markers, so these can be larger than the buffer size |
| 691 without causing problems; otherwise a 64K buffer would be needed in the worst |
| 692 case.) |
| 693 |
| 694 The JPEG marker writer currently does *not* cope with suspension. |
| 695 We feel that this is not necessary; it is much easier simply to require |
| 696 the application to ensure there is enough buffer space before starting. (An |
| 697 empty 2K buffer is more than sufficient for the header markers; and ensuring |
| 698 there are a dozen or two bytes available before calling jpeg_finish_compress() |
| 699 will suffice for the trailer.) This would not work for writing multi-scan |
| 700 JPEG files, but we simply do not intend to support that capability with |
| 701 suspension. |
| 702 |
| 703 |
| 704 *** Memory manager services *** |
| 705 |
| 706 The JPEG library's memory manager controls allocation and deallocation of |
| 707 memory, and it manages large "virtual" data arrays on machines where the |
| 708 operating system does not provide virtual memory. Note that the same |
| 709 memory manager serves both compression and decompression operations. |
| 710 |
| 711 In all cases, allocated objects are tied to a particular compression or |
| 712 decompression master record, and they will be released when that master |
| 713 record is destroyed. |
| 714 |
| 715 The memory manager does not provide explicit deallocation of objects. |
| 716 Instead, objects are created in "pools" of free storage, and a whole pool |
| 717 can be freed at once. This approach helps prevent storage-leak bugs, and |
| 718 it speeds up operations whenever malloc/free are slow (as they often are). |
| 719 The pools can be regarded as lifetime identifiers for objects. Two |
| 720 pools/lifetimes are defined: |
| 721 * JPOOL_PERMANENT lasts until master record is destroyed |
| 722 * JPOOL_IMAGE lasts until done with image (JPEG datastream) |
| 723 Permanent lifetime is used for parameters and tables that should be carried |
| 724 across from one datastream to another; this includes all application-visible |
| 725 parameters. Image lifetime is used for everything else. (A third lifetime, |
| 726 JPOOL_PASS = one processing pass, was originally planned. However it was |
| 727 dropped as not being worthwhile. The actual usage patterns are such that the |
| 728 peak memory usage would be about the same anyway; and having per-pass storage |
| 729 substantially complicates the virtual memory allocation rules --- see below.) |
| 730 |
| 731 The memory manager deals with three kinds of object: |
| 732 1. "Small" objects. Typically these require no more than 10K-20K total. |
| 733 2. "Large" objects. These may require tens to hundreds of K depending on |
| 734 image size. Semantically they behave the same as small objects, but we |
| 735 distinguish them because pool allocation heuristics may differ for large and |
| 736 small objects (historically, large objects were also referenced by far |
| 737 pointers on MS-DOS machines.) Note that individual "large" objects cannot |
| 738 exceed the size allowed by type size_t, which may be 64K or less on some |
| 739 machines. |
| 740 3. "Virtual" objects. These are large 2-D arrays of JSAMPLEs or JBLOCKs |
| 741 (typically large enough for the entire image being processed). The |
| 742 memory manager provides stripwise access to these arrays. On machines |
| 743 without virtual memory, the rest of the array may be swapped out to a |
| 744 temporary file. |
| 745 |
| 746 (Note: JSAMPARRAY and JBLOCKARRAY data structures are a combination of large |
| 747 objects for the data proper and small objects for the row pointers. For |
| 748 convenience and speed, the memory manager provides single routines to create |
| 749 these structures. Similarly, virtual arrays include a small control block |
| 750 and a JSAMPARRAY or JBLOCKARRAY working buffer, all created with one call.) |
| 751 |
| 752 In the present implementation, virtual arrays are only permitted to have image |
| 753 lifespan. (Permanent lifespan would not be reasonable, and pass lifespan is |
| 754 not very useful since a virtual array's raison d'etre is to store data for |
| 755 multiple passes through the image.) We also expect that only "small" objects |
| 756 will be given permanent lifespan, though this restriction is not required by |
| 757 the memory manager. |
| 758 |
| 759 In a non-virtual-memory machine, some performance benefit can be gained by |
| 760 making the in-memory buffers for virtual arrays be as large as possible. |
| 761 (For small images, the buffers might fit entirely in memory, so blind |
| 762 swapping would be very wasteful.) The memory manager will adjust the height |
| 763 of the buffers to fit within a prespecified maximum memory usage. In order |
| 764 to do this in a reasonably optimal fashion, the manager needs to allocate all |
| 765 of the virtual arrays at once. Therefore, there isn't a one-step allocation |
| 766 routine for virtual arrays; instead, there is a "request" routine that simply |
| 767 allocates the control block, and a "realize" routine (called just once) that |
| 768 determines space allocation and creates all of the actual buffers. The |
| 769 realize routine must allow for space occupied by non-virtual large objects. |
| 770 (We don't bother to factor in the space needed for small objects, on the |
| 771 grounds that it isn't worth the trouble.) |
| 772 |
| 773 To support all this, we establish the following protocol for doing business |
| 774 with the memory manager: |
| 775 1. Modules must request virtual arrays (which may have only image lifespan) |
| 776 during the initial setup phase, i.e., in their jinit_xxx routines. |
| 777 2. All "large" objects (including JSAMPARRAYs and JBLOCKARRAYs) must also be |
| 778 allocated during initial setup. |
| 779 3. realize_virt_arrays will be called at the completion of initial setup. |
| 780 The above conventions ensure that sufficient information is available |
| 781 for it to choose a good size for virtual array buffers. |
| 782 Small objects of any lifespan may be allocated at any time. We expect that |
| 783 the total space used for small objects will be small enough to be negligible |
| 784 in the realize_virt_arrays computation. |
| 785 |
| 786 In a virtual-memory machine, we simply pretend that the available space is |
| 787 infinite, thus causing realize_virt_arrays to decide that it can allocate all |
| 788 the virtual arrays as full-size in-memory buffers. The overhead of the |
| 789 virtual-array access protocol is very small when no swapping occurs. |
| 790 |
| 791 A virtual array can be specified to be "pre-zeroed"; when this flag is set, |
| 792 never-yet-written sections of the array are set to zero before being made |
| 793 available to the caller. If this flag is not set, never-written sections |
| 794 of the array contain garbage. (This feature exists primarily because the |
| 795 equivalent logic would otherwise be needed in jdcoefct.c for progressive |
| 796 JPEG mode; we may as well make it available for possible other uses.) |
| 797 |
| 798 The first write pass on a virtual array is required to occur in top-to-bottom |
| 799 order; read passes, as well as any write passes after the first one, may |
| 800 access the array in any order. This restriction exists partly to simplify |
| 801 the virtual array control logic, and partly because some file systems may not |
| 802 support seeking beyond the current end-of-file in a temporary file. The main |
| 803 implication of this restriction is that rearrangement of rows (such as |
| 804 converting top-to-bottom data order to bottom-to-top) must be handled while |
| 805 reading data out of the virtual array, not while putting it in. |
| 806 |
| 807 |
| 808 *** Memory manager internal structure *** |
| 809 |
| 810 To isolate system dependencies as much as possible, we have broken the |
| 811 memory manager into two parts. There is a reasonably system-independent |
| 812 "front end" (jmemmgr.c) and a "back end" that contains only the code |
| 813 likely to change across systems. All of the memory management methods |
| 814 outlined above are implemented by the front end. The back end provides |
| 815 the following routines for use by the front end (none of these routines |
| 816 are known to the rest of the JPEG code): |
| 817 |
| 818 jpeg_mem_init, jpeg_mem_term system-dependent initialization/shutdown |
| 819 |
| 820 jpeg_get_small, jpeg_free_small interface to malloc and free library routines |
| 821 (or their equivalents) |
| 822 |
| 823 jpeg_get_large, jpeg_free_large historically was used to interface with |
| 824 FAR malloc/free on MS-DOS machines; now the |
| 825 same as jpeg_get_small/jpeg_free_small |
| 826 |
| 827 jpeg_mem_available estimate available memory |
| 828 |
| 829 jpeg_open_backing_store create a backing-store object |
| 830 |
| 831 read_backing_store, manipulate a backing-store object |
| 832 write_backing_store, |
| 833 close_backing_store |
| 834 |
| 835 On some systems there will be more than one type of backing-store object |
| 836 (specifically, in MS-DOS a backing store file might be an area of extended |
| 837 memory as well as a disk file). jpeg_open_backing_store is responsible for |
| 838 choosing how to implement a given object. The read/write/close routines |
| 839 are method pointers in the structure that describes a given object; this |
| 840 lets them be different for different object types. |
| 841 |
| 842 It may be necessary to ensure that backing store objects are explicitly |
| 843 released upon abnormal program termination. For example, MS-DOS won't free |
| 844 extended memory by itself. To support this, we will expect the main program |
| 845 or surrounding application to arrange to call self_destruct (typically via |
| 846 jpeg_destroy) upon abnormal termination. This may require a SIGINT signal |
| 847 handler or equivalent. We don't want to have the back end module install its |
| 848 own signal handler, because that would pre-empt the surrounding application's |
| 849 ability to control signal handling. |
| 850 |
| 851 The IJG distribution includes several memory manager back end implementations. |
| 852 Usually the same back end should be suitable for all applications on a given |
| 853 system, but it is possible for an application to supply its own back end at |
| 854 need. |
| 855 |
| 856 |
| 857 *** Implications of DNL marker *** |
| 858 |
| 859 Some JPEG files may use a DNL marker to postpone definition of the image |
| 860 height (this would be useful for a fax-like scanner's output, for instance). |
| 861 In these files the SOF marker claims the image height is 0, and you only |
| 862 find out the true image height at the end of the first scan. |
| 863 |
| 864 We could read these files as follows: |
| 865 1. Upon seeing zero image height, replace it by 65535 (the maximum allowed). |
| 866 2. When the DNL is found, update the image height in the global image |
| 867 descriptor. |
| 868 This implies that control modules must avoid making copies of the image |
| 869 height, and must re-test for termination after each MCU row. This would |
| 870 be easy enough to do. |
| 871 |
| 872 In cases where image-size data structures are allocated, this approach will |
| 873 result in very inefficient use of virtual memory or much-larger-than-necessary |
| 874 temporary files. This seems acceptable for something that probably won't be a |
| 875 mainstream usage. People might have to forgo use of memory-hogging options |
| 876 (such as two-pass color quantization or noninterleaved JPEG files) if they |
| 877 want efficient conversion of such files. (One could improve efficiency by |
| 878 demanding a user-supplied upper bound for the height, less than 65536; in most |
| 879 cases it could be much less.) |
| 880 |
| 881 The standard also permits the SOF marker to overestimate the image height, |
| 882 with a DNL to give the true, smaller height at the end of the first scan. |
| 883 This would solve the space problems if the overestimate wasn't too great. |
| 884 However, it implies that you don't even know whether DNL will be used. |
| 885 |
| 886 This leads to a couple of very serious objections: |
| 887 1. Testing for a DNL marker must occur in the inner loop of the decompressor's |
| 888 Huffman decoder; this implies a speed penalty whether the feature is used |
| 889 or not. |
| 890 2. There is no way to hide the last-minute change in image height from an |
| 891 application using the decoder. Thus *every* application using the IJG |
| 892 library would suffer a complexity penalty whether it cared about DNL or |
| 893 not. |
| 894 We currently do not support DNL because of these problems. |
| 895 |
| 896 A different approach is to insist that DNL-using files be preprocessed by a |
| 897 separate program that reads ahead to the DNL, then goes back and fixes the SOF |
| 898 marker. This is a much simpler solution and is probably far more efficient. |
| 899 Even if one wants piped input, buffering the first scan of the JPEG file needs |
| 900 a lot smaller temp file than is implied by the maximum-height method. For |
| 901 this approach we'd simply treat DNL as a no-op in the decompressor (at most, |
| 902 check that it matches the SOF image height). |
| 903 |
| 904 We will not worry about making the compressor capable of outputting DNL. |
| 905 Something similar to the first scheme above could be applied if anyone ever |
| 906 wants to make that work. |
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