JPEG Column: 79th JPEG Meeting in La Jolla, California, U.S.A.

The JPEG Committee had its 79^th meeting in La Jolla, California, U.S.A., from 9 to 15 April 2018.

During this meeting, JPEG had a final celebration of the 25^th anniversary of its first JPEG standard, usually known as JPEG-1. This celebration coincides with two interesting facts. The first was the approval of a reference software for JPEG-1, “only” after 25 years. At the time of approval of the first JPEG standard a reference software was not considered, as it is common in recent image standards. However, the JPEG committee decided that was still important to provide a reference software, as current applications and standards can largely benefit on this specification. The second coincidence was the launch of a call for proposals for a next generation image coding standard, JPEG XL. This standard will define a new representation format for Photographic information, that includes the current technological developments, and can become an alternative to the 25 years old JPEG standard.

An informative two-hour JPEG Technologies Workshop marked the 25th anniversary celebration on Friday April 13, 2018. The workshop had presentations of several committee members on the current and future JPEG committee activity, with the following program:

• Overview of JPEG activities, by Touradj Ebrahimi
• JPEG XS by Antonin Descampe and Thomas Richter
• HTJ2K by Pierre-Anthony Lemieux
• JPEG Pleno – Light Field, Point Cloud, Holography by Ioan Tabus, Antonio Pinheiro, Peter Schelkens
• JPEG Systems – Privacy and Security, 360 by Siegfried Foessel, Frederik Temmermans, Andy Kuzma
• JPEG XL by Fernando Pereira, Jan De Cock

After the workshop, a social event was organized where a past JPEG committee Convenor, Eric Hamilton was recognized for key contributions to the JPEG standardization.

La Jolla JPEG meetings comprise mainly the following highlights:

• Call for proposals of a next generation image coding standard, JPEG XL
• JPEG XS profiles and levels definition
• JPEG Systems defines a 360 degree format
• HTJ2K
• JPEG Pleno
• JPEG XT
• Approval of the JPEG Reference Software

The following summarizes various activities during JPEG’s La Jolla meeting.

JPEG XL

Billions of images are captured, stored and shared on a daily basis demonstrating the self-evident need for efficient image compression. Applications, websites and user interfaces are increasingly relying on images to share experiences, stories, visual information and appealing designs.

User interfaces can target devices with stringent constraints on network connection and/or power consumption in bandwidth constrained environments. Even though network capacities are improving globally, bandwidth is constrained to levels that inhibit application responsiveness in many situations. User interfaces that utilize images containing larger resolutions, higher dynamic ranges, wider color gamuts and higher bit depths, further contribute to larger volumes of data in higher bandwidth environments.

The JPEG Committee has launched a Next Generation Image Coding activity, referred to as JPEG XL. This activity aims to develop a standard for image coding that offers substantially better compression efficiency than existing image formats (e.g. more than 60% improvement when compared to the widely used legacy JPEG format), along with features desirable for web distribution and efficient compression of high-quality images.

To this end, the JPEG Committee has issued a Call for Proposals following its 79th meeting in April 2018, with the objective of seeking technologies that fulfill the objectives and scope of a Next Generation Image Coding. The Call for Proposals (CfP), with all related info, can be found at jpeg.org. The deadline for expression of interest and registration is August 15, 2018, and submissions to the Call are due September 1, 2018. To stay posted on the action plan for JPEG XL, please regularly consult our website at jpeg.org and/or subscribe to our e-mail reflector.

 

JPEG XS

This project aims at the standardization of a visually lossless low-latency lightweight compression scheme that can be used as a mezzanine codec for the broadcast industry, Pro-AV and other markets such as VR/AR/MR applications and autonomous cars. Among important use cases identified one can mention in particular video transport over professional video links (SDI, IP, Ethernet), real-time video storage, memory buffers, omnidirectional video capture and rendering, and sensor compression in the automotive industry. During the La Jolla meeting, profiles and levels have been defined to help implementers accurately size their design for their specific use cases. Transport of JPEG XS over IP networks or SDI infrastructures, are also being specified and will be finalized during the next JPEG meeting in Berlin (July 9-13, 2018). The JPEG committee therefore invites interested parties, in particular coding experts, codec providers, system integrators and potential users of the foreseen solutions, to contribute to the specification process. Publication of the core coding system as an International Standard is expected in Q4 2018.

 

JPEG Systems – JPEG 360

The JPEG Committee continues to make progress towards its goals to define a common framework and definitions for metadata which will improve the ability to share 360 images and provide the basis to enable new user interaction with images.  At the 79^th JPEG meeting in La Jolla, the JPEG committee received responses to a call for proposals it issued for JPEG 360 metadata. As a result, JPEG Systems is readying a committee draft of “JPEG Universal Metadata Box Format (JUMBF)” as ISO/IEC 19566-5, and “JPEG 360” as ISO/IEC 19566-6.  The box structure defined by JUMBF allows JPEG 360 to define a flexible metadata schema and the ability to link JPEG code streams embedded in the file. It also allows keeping unstitched image elements for omnidirectional captures together with the main image and descriptive metadata in a single file.  Furthermore, JUMBF lays the groundwork for a uniform approach to integrate tools satisfying the emerging requirements for privacy and security metadata.

To stay posted on JPEG 360, please regularly consult our website at jpeg.org and/or subscribe to the JPEG 360 e-mail reflector. 

 

HTJ2K

High Throughput JPEG 2000 (HTJ2K) aims to develop an alternate block-coding algorithm that can be used in place of the existing block coding algorithm specified in ISO/IEC 15444-1 (JPEG 2000 Part 1). The objective is to significantly increase the throughput of JPEG 2000, at the expense of a small reduction in coding efficiency, while allowing mathematically lossless transcoding to and from codestreams using the existing block coding algorithm.

As a result of a Call for Proposals issued at its 76^th meeting, the JPEG Committee has selected a block-coding algorithm as the basis for Part 15 of the JPEG 2000 suite of standards, known as High Throughput JPEG 2000 (HTJ2K). The algorithm has demonstrated an average tenfold increase in encoding and decoding throughput, compared to the algorithms based on JPEG 2000 Part 1. This increase in throughput results in less than 15% average loss in coding efficiency, and allows mathematically lossless transcoding to and from JPEG 2000 Part 1 codestreams.

A Working Draft of Part 15 to the JPEG 2000 suite of standards is now under development.

 

JPEG Pleno

The JPEG Committee is currently pursuing three activities in the framework of the JPEG Pleno Standardization: Light Field, Point Cloud and Holographic content coding.

JPEG Pleno Light Field finished a third round of core experiments for assessing the impact of individual coding modules and started work on creating software for a verification model. Moreover, additional test data has been studied and approved for use in future core experiments. Working Draft documents for JPEG Pleno specifications Part 1 and Part 2 were updated. A JPEG Pleno Light Field AhG was established with mandates to create a common test conditions document; perform exploration studies on new datasets, quality metrics, and random-access performance indicators; and to update the working draft documents for Part 1 and Part 2.

Furthermore, use cases were studied and are under consideration for JPEG Pleno Point Cloud. A current draft list is under discussion for the next period and will be updated and mapped to the JPEG Pleno requirements. A final document on use cases and requirements for JPEG Pleno Point Cloud is expected at the next meeting.

JPEG Pleno Holography has reviewed the draft of a holography overview document. Moreover, the current databases were classified according to use cases, and plans to analyze numerical reconstruction tools were established.

 

JPEG XT

The JPEG Committee released two corrigenda to JPEG XT Part 1 (core coding system) and JPEG XT Part 8 (lossless extension JPEG-1). These corrigenda clarify the upsampling procedure for chroma-subsampled images by adopting the centered upsampling in use by JFIF.

 

JPEG Reference Software

The JPEG Committee is pleased to announce that the CD ballot for Reference Software has been issued for the original JPEG-1 standard. This initiative closes a long-standing gap in the legacy JPEG standard by providing two reference implementations for this widely used and popular image coding format.

Final Quote

“The JPEG Committee is hopeful to see its recently launched Next Generation Image Coding, JPEG XL, can result in a format that will become as important for imaging products and services as its predecessor was; the widely used and popular legacy JPEG format which has been in service for a quarter of century.” said Prof. Touradj Ebrahimi, the Convenor of the JPEG Committee.

About JPEG

The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) is a Working Group of ISO/IEC, the International Organisation for Standardization / International Electrotechnical Commission, (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 1) and of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T SG16), responsible for the popular JBIG, JPEG, JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, JPSearch and more recently, the JPEG XT, JPEG XS, JPEG Systems and JPEG Pleno families of imaging standards.

The JPEG Committee nominally meets four times a year, in different world locations. The 79^th JPEG Meeting was held on 9-15 April 2018, in La Jolla, California, USA. The next 80^th JPEG Meeting will be held on 7-13, July 2018, in Berlin, Germany.

More information about JPEG and its work is available at www.jpeg.org or by contacting Antonio Pinheiro or Frederik Temmermans (pr@jpeg.org) of the JPEG Communication Subgroup.

If you would like to stay posted on JPEG activities, please subscribe to the jpeg-news mailing list on http://jpeg-news-list.jpeg.org.  

 

Future JPEG meetings are planned as follows:

• No 80, Berlin, Germany, July 7 to13, 2018
• No 81, Vancouver, Canada, October 13 to 19, 2018
• No 82, Lisbon, Portugal, January 19 to 25, 2019