JPEG 2000 as Evolutionary

Open Standard. An “open standard” is one that is free for anyone to read, understand, and implement with no royalties or fees. TIFF is an open standard, although the optional compression algorithm it uses is not. Another file format used extensively in the map and satellite photography fields, SID, offers wavelet compression but in a patented form. The JPEG 2000 standard, as with all open standards, encourages the creation of multiple products for processing these files in a competitive marketplace with assurance that adherence to the standard will result in interoperability. The open nature of the standard also ensures that software can be written to process the files long after a commercial advantage has been realized.

Replacement for TIFF, JPEG and SID. Current best practices for the storage of digital images in the library and archive communities use the TIFF, JPEG, and SID file formats. The older JPEG format reduces the amount of space required to store images through a form of compression that sacrifices image detail, so it is mainly used as an access format. TIFF, used widely as a preservation format, provides options for compression that do not affect image fidelity, but few have gained wide acceptance and those that have are based on patented algorithms. SID is a proprietary wavelet compression format heavily used in map, satellite, and large-format imagery. By comparison, the compression scheme used by JPEG 2000 is free of license and royalty restrictions and provides for “lossless” compression of image data. In addition, JPEG 2000 allows for multiple resolutions of images to be contained in the same file; the thumbnail, access version, and preservation version of an image can be stored in the file and retrieved using standards-compliant software.