The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) is the working group of ISO, International Standard Organisation, that defined the popular JPEG Imaging Standard for compression used in still image applications. This group convenes three times a year, in Europe, North America and Asia. They  met in Shanghai, China, for their 28th meeting.

This meeting was co-located with their colleagues in MPEG (the standardization group that defines standards for motion pictures and multimedia objects); joint meetings were held, allowing harmonisation of the efforts and activities of the two groups, as both MPEG and JPEG are part of the same ISO committee, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29. This continues a strong tradition of collaboration between JPEG and MPEG.

Activities at the meeting included technical progress of the new JPEG 2000 standard that offers a new, well-structured approach to digital image compression standards. In Shanghai, the emphasis was on New Work Items of JPEG 2000 as the core technologies underpinning JPEG 2000 are already well defined by a baseline version of the standard, together with some reference software and other extensions issued as International Standards (ITU-T T.800 | ISO/IEC 15444). Four new parts of the official Standard, extending JPEG 2000's capabilities, are being developed and will be issued when work is finalised.

Dr. Daniel T. Lee of Yahoo! Inc. and JPEG Convener noted that "the four new parts of the JPEG 2000 standard will guarantee interoperability in the important areas of image security, interactive imaging applications, 3D/volumetic imaging and wireless applications. The powerful tools of the JPEG 2000 image coding technology are instrumental in bringing out advanced sets of functionalities in these applications."

Part 8- JPSEC, dealing with all types of security services (Conditional access, IPR protection, Integrity and Authentication) and their relevant techniques (hashing, encryption, watermarking, digital signature). Delegates also held a joint meeting with the MPEG IPMP experts, on management of Intellectual Property Rights, a newly emerging problem linked to respect and exploitation of the rights attached to the digital contents.

Part 9- JPIP, (JPEG 2000 interactivity protocols and tools) produced its second Working Draft document, developing its work in file cataloguing and metadata retrieval in the digital image domain.

Part 10- JP3D, (3D digital imaging) produced its first Working Draft, defining the goals and requirements for volumetric and 3D imaging.

Part 11- JPWL, (wireless applications) defined use cases and identified the system architecture and simulation environment. Amongst these use cases, videotelephone on 3G, Wireless LAN (e.g., for slide projector), and Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) are currently envisaged and a Working Draft has been delivered in November 1, 2002.

JPEG Experts discussed some aspects of the present situation concerning patent issues, relating to both JPEG 2000 and the JPEG standard (ITU-T T.81 | ISO 10918-1). The JPEG committee agreed to create a "Historical Archive of JPEG" and an associated bibliography, whose content will soon be available to JPEG members through its web site. This work has been allocated to an ad-hoc group within the committee. Some aspects of this may be made public, subject to the agreement of the JPEG committee's membership and its parent organizations. (Note for editors - there is further information on this work in an associated press kit).

A new ad-hoc group has been created to address medical applications and their particular requirements (quality, metadata, security, etc.) because of the strong demand from the marketplace

Presentations of updated technology were given by the experts on :

Wireless LAN, by Dr. Fabrizio Frescura, University of Perugia, Italy,

Demonstration of SVG/JPEG 2000 Integration by Dr. Eric Masera, Mr.Thomas DeWeese, Eastman Kodak, France.

More on the Shanghai JPEG session from :
Jean Barda or Richard Clark (pr@jpeg.org)
Information on JPEG 2000 can also be found at www.jpeg.org.