Parker Schuh | ebf887e | 2016-01-10 18:04:04 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG software |
| 2 | ========================================== |
| 3 | |
| 4 | README for release 8d of 15-Jan-2012 |
| 5 | ==================================== |
| 6 | |
| 7 | This distribution contains the eighth 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 | This software is the work of Tom Lane, Guido Vollbeding, Philip Gladstone, |
| 12 | Bill Allombert, Jim Boucher, Lee Crocker, Bob Friesenhahn, Ben Jackson, |
| 13 | Julian Minguillon, Luis Ortiz, George Phillips, Davide Rossi, Ge' Weijers, |
| 14 | and other members of the Independent JPEG Group. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | IJG is not affiliated with the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG1 standards committee |
| 17 | (also known as JPEG, together with ITU-T SG16). |
| 18 | |
| 19 | |
| 20 | DOCUMENTATION ROADMAP |
| 21 | ===================== |
| 22 | |
| 23 | This file contains the following sections: |
| 24 | |
| 25 | OVERVIEW General description of JPEG and the IJG software. |
| 26 | LEGAL ISSUES Copyright, lack of warranty, terms of distribution. |
| 27 | REFERENCES Where to learn more about JPEG. |
| 28 | ARCHIVE LOCATIONS Where to find newer versions of this software. |
| 29 | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks. |
| 30 | FILE FORMAT WARS Software *not* to get. |
| 31 | TO DO Plans for future IJG releases. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | Other documentation files in the distribution are: |
| 34 | |
| 35 | User documentation: |
| 36 | install.txt How to configure and install the IJG software. |
| 37 | usage.txt Usage instructions for cjpeg, djpeg, jpegtran, |
| 38 | rdjpgcom, and wrjpgcom. |
| 39 | *.1 Unix-style man pages for programs (same info as usage.txt). |
| 40 | wizard.txt Advanced usage instructions for JPEG wizards only. |
| 41 | change.log Version-to-version change highlights. |
| 42 | Programmer and internal documentation: |
| 43 | libjpeg.txt How to use the JPEG library in your own programs. |
| 44 | example.c Sample code for calling the JPEG library. |
| 45 | structure.txt Overview of the JPEG library's internal structure. |
| 46 | filelist.txt Road map of IJG files. |
| 47 | coderules.txt Coding style rules --- please read if you contribute code. |
| 48 | |
| 49 | Please read at least the files install.txt and usage.txt. Some information |
| 50 | can also be found in the JPEG FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) article. See |
| 51 | ARCHIVE LOCATIONS below to find out where to obtain the FAQ article. |
| 52 | |
| 53 | If you want to understand how the JPEG code works, we suggest reading one or |
| 54 | more of the REFERENCES, then looking at the documentation files (in roughly |
| 55 | the order listed) before diving into the code. |
| 56 | |
| 57 | |
| 58 | OVERVIEW |
| 59 | ======== |
| 60 | |
| 61 | This package contains C software to implement JPEG image encoding, decoding, |
| 62 | and transcoding. JPEG (pronounced "jay-peg") is a standardized compression |
| 63 | method for full-color and gray-scale images. |
| 64 | |
| 65 | This software implements JPEG baseline, extended-sequential, and progressive |
| 66 | compression processes. Provision is made for supporting all variants of these |
| 67 | processes, although some uncommon parameter settings aren't implemented yet. |
| 68 | We have made no provision for supporting the hierarchical or lossless |
| 69 | processes defined in the standard. |
| 70 | |
| 71 | We provide a set of library routines for reading and writing JPEG image files, |
| 72 | plus two sample applications "cjpeg" and "djpeg", which use the library to |
| 73 | perform conversion between JPEG and some other popular image file formats. |
| 74 | The library is intended to be reused in other applications. |
| 75 | |
| 76 | In order to support file conversion and viewing software, we have included |
| 77 | considerable functionality beyond the bare JPEG coding/decoding capability; |
| 78 | for example, the color quantization modules are not strictly part of JPEG |
| 79 | decoding, but they are essential for output to colormapped file formats or |
| 80 | colormapped displays. These extra functions can be compiled out of the |
| 81 | library if not required for a particular application. |
| 82 | |
| 83 | We have also included "jpegtran", a utility for lossless transcoding between |
| 84 | different JPEG processes, and "rdjpgcom" and "wrjpgcom", two simple |
| 85 | applications for inserting and extracting textual comments in JFIF files. |
| 86 | |
| 87 | The emphasis in designing this software has been on achieving portability and |
| 88 | flexibility, while also making it fast enough to be useful. In particular, |
| 89 | the software is not intended to be read as a tutorial on JPEG. (See the |
| 90 | REFERENCES section for introductory material.) Rather, it is intended to |
| 91 | be reliable, portable, industrial-strength code. We do not claim to have |
| 92 | achieved that goal in every aspect of the software, but we strive for it. |
| 93 | |
| 94 | We welcome the use of this software as a component of commercial products. |
| 95 | No royalty is required, but we do ask for an acknowledgement in product |
| 96 | documentation, as described under LEGAL ISSUES. |
| 97 | |
| 98 | |
| 99 | LEGAL ISSUES |
| 100 | ============ |
| 101 | |
| 102 | In plain English: |
| 103 | |
| 104 | 1. We don't promise that this software works. (But if you find any bugs, |
| 105 | please let us know!) |
| 106 | 2. You can use this software for whatever you want. You don't have to pay us. |
| 107 | 3. You may not pretend that you wrote this software. If you use it in a |
| 108 | program, you must acknowledge somewhere in your documentation that |
| 109 | you've used the IJG code. |
| 110 | |
| 111 | In legalese: |
| 112 | |
| 113 | The authors make NO WARRANTY or representation, either express or implied, |
| 114 | with respect to this software, its quality, accuracy, merchantability, or |
| 115 | fitness for a particular purpose. This software is provided "AS IS", and you, |
| 116 | its user, assume the entire risk as to its quality and accuracy. |
| 117 | |
| 118 | This software is copyright (C) 1991-2012, Thomas G. Lane, Guido Vollbeding. |
| 119 | All Rights Reserved except as specified below. |
| 120 | |
| 121 | Permission is hereby granted to use, copy, modify, and distribute this |
| 122 | software (or portions thereof) for any purpose, without fee, subject to these |
| 123 | conditions: |
| 124 | (1) If any part of the source code for this software is distributed, then this |
| 125 | README file must be included, with this copyright and no-warranty notice |
| 126 | unaltered; and any additions, deletions, or changes to the original files |
| 127 | must be clearly indicated in accompanying documentation. |
| 128 | (2) If only executable code is distributed, then the accompanying |
| 129 | documentation must state that "this software is based in part on the work of |
| 130 | the Independent JPEG Group". |
| 131 | (3) Permission for use of this software is granted only if the user accepts |
| 132 | full responsibility for any undesirable consequences; the authors accept |
| 133 | NO LIABILITY for damages of any kind. |
| 134 | |
| 135 | These conditions apply to any software derived from or based on the IJG code, |
| 136 | not just to the unmodified library. If you use our work, you ought to |
| 137 | acknowledge us. |
| 138 | |
| 139 | Permission is NOT granted for the use of any IJG author's name or company name |
| 140 | in advertising or publicity relating to this software or products derived from |
| 141 | it. This software may be referred to only as "the Independent JPEG Group's |
| 142 | software". |
| 143 | |
| 144 | We specifically permit and encourage the use of this software as the basis of |
| 145 | commercial products, provided that all warranty or liability claims are |
| 146 | assumed by the product vendor. |
| 147 | |
| 148 | |
| 149 | ansi2knr.c is included in this distribution by permission of L. Peter Deutsch, |
| 150 | sole proprietor of its copyright holder, Aladdin Enterprises of Menlo Park, CA. |
| 151 | ansi2knr.c is NOT covered by the above copyright and conditions, but instead |
| 152 | by the usual distribution terms of the Free Software Foundation; principally, |
| 153 | that you must include source code if you redistribute it. (See the file |
| 154 | ansi2knr.c for full details.) However, since ansi2knr.c is not needed as part |
| 155 | of any program generated from the IJG code, this does not limit you more than |
| 156 | the foregoing paragraphs do. |
| 157 | |
| 158 | The Unix configuration script "configure" was produced with GNU Autoconf. |
| 159 | It is copyright by the Free Software Foundation but is freely distributable. |
| 160 | The same holds for its supporting scripts (config.guess, config.sub, |
| 161 | ltmain.sh). Another support script, install-sh, is copyright by X Consortium |
| 162 | but is also freely distributable. |
| 163 | |
| 164 | The IJG distribution formerly included code to read and write GIF files. |
| 165 | To avoid entanglement with the Unisys LZW patent, GIF reading support has |
| 166 | been removed altogether, and the GIF writer has been simplified to produce |
| 167 | "uncompressed GIFs". This technique does not use the LZW algorithm; the |
| 168 | resulting GIF files are larger than usual, but are readable by all standard |
| 169 | GIF decoders. |
| 170 | |
| 171 | We are required to state that |
| 172 | "The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of |
| 173 | CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of |
| 174 | CompuServe Incorporated." |
| 175 | |
| 176 | |
| 177 | REFERENCES |
| 178 | ========== |
| 179 | |
| 180 | We recommend reading one or more of these references before trying to |
| 181 | understand the innards of the JPEG software. |
| 182 | |
| 183 | The best short technical introduction to the JPEG compression algorithm is |
| 184 | Wallace, Gregory K. "The JPEG Still Picture Compression Standard", |
| 185 | Communications of the ACM, April 1991 (vol. 34 no. 4), pp. 30-44. |
| 186 | (Adjacent articles in that issue discuss MPEG motion picture compression, |
| 187 | applications of JPEG, and related topics.) If you don't have the CACM issue |
| 188 | handy, a PostScript file containing a revised version of Wallace's article is |
| 189 | available at http://www.ijg.org/files/wallace.ps.gz. The file (actually |
| 190 | a preprint for an article that appeared in IEEE Trans. Consumer Electronics) |
| 191 | omits the sample images that appeared in CACM, but it includes corrections |
| 192 | and some added material. Note: the Wallace article is copyright ACM and IEEE, |
| 193 | and it may not be used for commercial purposes. |
| 194 | |
| 195 | A somewhat less technical, more leisurely introduction to JPEG can be found in |
| 196 | "The Data Compression Book" by Mark Nelson and Jean-loup Gailly, published by |
| 197 | M&T Books (New York), 2nd ed. 1996, ISBN 1-55851-434-1. This book provides |
| 198 | good explanations and example C code for a multitude of compression methods |
| 199 | including JPEG. It is an excellent source if you are comfortable reading C |
| 200 | code but don't know much about data compression in general. The book's JPEG |
| 201 | sample code is far from industrial-strength, but when you are ready to look |
| 202 | at a full implementation, you've got one here... |
| 203 | |
| 204 | The best currently available description of JPEG is the textbook "JPEG Still |
| 205 | Image Data Compression Standard" by William B. Pennebaker and Joan L. |
| 206 | Mitchell, published by Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993, ISBN 0-442-01272-1. |
| 207 | Price US$59.95, 638 pp. The book includes the complete text of the ISO JPEG |
| 208 | standards (DIS 10918-1 and draft DIS 10918-2). |
| 209 | Although this is by far the most detailed and comprehensive exposition of |
| 210 | JPEG publicly available, we point out that it is still missing an explanation |
| 211 | of the most essential properties and algorithms of the underlying DCT |
| 212 | technology. |
| 213 | If you think that you know about DCT-based JPEG after reading this book, |
| 214 | then you are in delusion. The real fundamentals and corresponding potential |
| 215 | of DCT-based JPEG are not publicly known so far, and that is the reason for |
| 216 | all the mistaken developments taking place in the image coding domain. |
| 217 | |
| 218 | The original JPEG standard is divided into two parts, Part 1 being the actual |
| 219 | specification, while Part 2 covers compliance testing methods. Part 1 is |
| 220 | titled "Digital Compression and Coding of Continuous-tone Still Images, |
| 221 | Part 1: Requirements and guidelines" and has document numbers ISO/IEC IS |
| 222 | 10918-1, ITU-T T.81. Part 2 is titled "Digital Compression and Coding of |
| 223 | Continuous-tone Still Images, Part 2: Compliance testing" and has document |
| 224 | numbers ISO/IEC IS 10918-2, ITU-T T.83. |
| 225 | IJG JPEG 8 introduces an implementation of the JPEG SmartScale extension |
| 226 | which is specified in two documents: A contributed document at ITU and ISO |
| 227 | with title "ITU-T JPEG-Plus Proposal for Extending ITU-T T.81 for Advanced |
| 228 | Image Coding", April 2006, Geneva, Switzerland. The latest version of this |
| 229 | document is Revision 3. And a contributed document ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG1 N |
| 230 | 5799 with title "Evolution of JPEG", June/July 2011, Berlin, Germany. |
| 231 | |
| 232 | The JPEG standard does not specify all details of an interchangeable file |
| 233 | format. For the omitted details we follow the "JFIF" conventions, revision |
| 234 | 1.02. JFIF 1.02 has been adopted as an Ecma International Technical Report |
| 235 | and thus received a formal publication status. It is available as a free |
| 236 | download in PDF format from |
| 237 | http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/techreports/E-TR-098.htm. |
| 238 | A PostScript version of the JFIF document is available at |
| 239 | http://www.ijg.org/files/jfif.ps.gz. There is also a plain text version at |
| 240 | http://www.ijg.org/files/jfif.txt.gz, but it is missing the figures. |
| 241 | |
| 242 | The TIFF 6.0 file format specification can be obtained by FTP from |
| 243 | ftp://ftp.sgi.com/graphics/tiff/TIFF6.ps.gz. The JPEG incorporation scheme |
| 244 | found in the TIFF 6.0 spec of 3-June-92 has a number of serious problems. |
| 245 | IJG does not recommend use of the TIFF 6.0 design (TIFF Compression tag 6). |
| 246 | Instead, we recommend the JPEG design proposed by TIFF Technical Note #2 |
| 247 | (Compression tag 7). Copies of this Note can be obtained from |
| 248 | http://www.ijg.org/files/. It is expected that the next revision |
| 249 | of the TIFF spec will replace the 6.0 JPEG design with the Note's design. |
| 250 | Although IJG's own code does not support TIFF/JPEG, the free libtiff library |
| 251 | uses our library to implement TIFF/JPEG per the Note. |
| 252 | |
| 253 | |
| 254 | ARCHIVE LOCATIONS |
| 255 | ================= |
| 256 | |
| 257 | The "official" archive site for this software is www.ijg.org. |
| 258 | The most recent released version can always be found there in |
| 259 | directory "files". This particular version will be archived as |
| 260 | http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsrc.v8d.tar.gz, and in Windows-compatible |
| 261 | "zip" archive format as http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsr8d.zip. |
| 262 | |
| 263 | The JPEG FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) article is a source of some |
| 264 | general information about JPEG. |
| 265 | It is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/ |
| 266 | and other news.answers archive sites, including the official news.answers |
| 267 | archive at rtfm.mit.edu: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/jpeg-faq/. |
| 268 | If you don't have Web or FTP access, send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu |
| 269 | with body |
| 270 | send usenet/news.answers/jpeg-faq/part1 |
| 271 | send usenet/news.answers/jpeg-faq/part2 |
| 272 | |
| 273 | |
| 274 | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
| 275 | =============== |
| 276 | |
| 277 | Thank to Juergen Bruder for providing me with a copy of the common DCT |
| 278 | algorithm article, only to find out that I had come to the same result |
| 279 | in a more direct and comprehensible way with a more generative approach. |
| 280 | |
| 281 | Thank to Istvan Sebestyen and Joan L. Mitchell for inviting me to the |
| 282 | ITU JPEG (Study Group 16) meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. |
| 283 | |
| 284 | Thank to Thomas Wiegand and Gary Sullivan for inviting me to the |
| 285 | Joint Video Team (MPEG & ITU) meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. |
| 286 | |
| 287 | Thank to Thomas Richter and Daniel Lee for inviting me to the |
| 288 | ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG1 (also known as JPEG, together with ITU-T SG16) |
| 289 | meeting in Berlin, Germany. |
| 290 | |
| 291 | Thank to John Korejwa and Massimo Ballerini for inviting me to |
| 292 | fruitful consultations in Boston, MA and Milan, Italy. |
| 293 | |
| 294 | Thank to Hendrik Elstner, Roland Fassauer, Simone Zuck, Guenther |
| 295 | Maier-Gerber, Walter Stoeber, Fred Schmitz, and Norbert Braunagel |
| 296 | for corresponding business development. |
| 297 | |
| 298 | Thank to Nico Zschach and Dirk Stelling of the technical support team |
| 299 | at the Digital Images company in Halle for providing me with extra |
| 300 | equipment for configuration tests. |
| 301 | |
| 302 | Thank to Richard F. Lyon (then of Foveon Inc.) for fruitful |
| 303 | communication about JPEG configuration in Sigma Photo Pro software. |
| 304 | |
| 305 | Thank to Andrew Finkenstadt for hosting the ijg.org site. |
| 306 | |
| 307 | Last but not least special thank to Thomas G. Lane for the original |
| 308 | design and development of this singular software package. |
| 309 | |
| 310 | |
| 311 | FILE FORMAT WARS |
| 312 | ================ |
| 313 | |
| 314 | The ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG1 standards committee (also known as JPEG, together |
| 315 | with ITU-T SG16) currently promotes different formats containing the name |
| 316 | "JPEG" which is misleading because these formats are incompatible with |
| 317 | original DCT-based JPEG and are based on faulty technologies. |
| 318 | IJG therefore does not and will not support such momentary mistakes |
| 319 | (see REFERENCES). |
| 320 | There exist also distributions under the name "OpenJPEG" promoting such |
| 321 | kind of formats which is misleading because they don't support original |
| 322 | JPEG images. |
| 323 | We have no sympathy for the promotion of inferior formats. Indeed, one of |
| 324 | the original reasons for developing this free software was to help force |
| 325 | convergence on common, interoperable format standards for JPEG files. |
| 326 | Don't use an incompatible file format! |
| 327 | (In any case, our decoder will remain capable of reading existing JPEG |
| 328 | image files indefinitely.) |
| 329 | |
| 330 | Furthermore, the ISO committee pretends to be "responsible for the popular |
| 331 | JPEG" in their public reports which is not true because they don't respond to |
| 332 | actual requirements for the maintenance of the original JPEG specification. |
| 333 | |
| 334 | There are currently distributions in circulation containing the name |
| 335 | "libjpeg" which claim to be a "derivative" or "fork" of the original |
| 336 | libjpeg, but don't have the features and are incompatible with formats |
| 337 | supported by actual IJG libjpeg distributions. Furthermore, they |
| 338 | violate the license conditions as described under LEGAL ISSUES above. |
| 339 | We have no sympathy for the release of misleading and illegal |
| 340 | distributions derived from obsolete code bases. |
| 341 | Don't use an obsolete code base! |
| 342 | |
| 343 | |
| 344 | TO DO |
| 345 | ===== |
| 346 | |
| 347 | Version 8 is the first release of a new generation JPEG standard |
| 348 | to overcome the limitations of the original JPEG specification. |
| 349 | More features are being prepared for coming releases... |
| 350 | |
| 351 | Please send bug reports, offers of help, etc. to jpeg-info@jpegclub.org. |