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Many key applications of the new JPEG 2000 standard will use the Internet, and Internet technologies to distribute images.  JPEG 2000 images have a number of properties which make them very suitable for use with the Internet.  Typically, Internet users are constrained from downloading large, high quality images because of their physical file size.  Often providers of images must create three or more versions of an image, varying from a tiny thumbnail through to a page size image.

Digital cameras have improved in quality and resolution to a level where they are now competing effectively with traditional film.  The images they generate are often no longer directly suitable for Internet deployment - the quality and size is wasted on traditional computer monitors.  In part, this is because the monitor might show no more than a quarter of the captured image without scrolling, and in part because the colour fidelity of the monitor does not match that of the camera.

Both of these issues are addressed by JPEG 2000 standards.  Images saved in JPEG 2000 format can be coded so that the data when transmitted and imaged gradually increases in resolution, starting with a thumbnail, or gradually increases in quality.  A combination of these (and other) quality measures can also be achieved - and the user can stop the image transmission once they have enough detail to make their next choice, as the data is ordered in the file in the correct way to simplify its delivery by image servers.

New parts of the JPEG 2000 standards are being created which extend these delivery methods considerably - for example:

• Part 8 (JPSEC) deals with image security - for example showing how to use watermarking and other technologies to provide the technical base that many e-commerce applications will need to be able to show their material without risking its piracy
  
• Part 9 (JPIP) defines new methods to link and deliver the image metadata (information about the image, like its creation time and place) with the image itself, and to deliver under user control the most important pieces of this information first.  For example, a doctor looking at an X-Ray could zoom in on areas of interest which could be magnified, or delivered at much enhanced quality long before the rest of the image.
  
• Part 10 (JP3D) addresses how three-dimensional representations of images could be communicated
  
• Part 11 (JPWL) looks at how the particular characteristics of wireless communications and mobile telephony might affect transmission of JPEG 2000 images.  It is of course strongly related to the work in JPSEC and JPIP

JPEG 2000 is likely to become a format for storing and delivering image data held in large archives.  Until browser manufacturers catch up, it may well be necessary to transcode the JPEG 2000 material to a format that the browsers can handle, such as the original JPEG standard, or PNG.  Fortunately today's server technology is well capable of providing this translation dynamically, and users may not even be aware that the original images are JPEG 2000 based.  As an example, www.mapquest.com already has a core JPEG 2000 architecture for delivering many of the photographic overlays it links to its mapping application.

Contact address:
Richard Clark
JPEG Webmaster
Elysium Ltd, Crowborough, UK
Email: uk@jpeg.org