Author Archives: Antonio Pinheiro

The 82^nd JPEG meeting was held in Lisbon, Portugal. Highlights of the meeting are progress on JPEG XL, JPEG XS, HTJ2K, JPEG Pleno, JPEG Systems and JPEG reference software.

JPEG has been the most common representation format of digital images for more than 25 years. Other image representation formats have been standardised by JPEG committee like JPEG 2000 or more recently JPEG XS. Furthermore, JPEG has been extended with new functionalities like HDR or alpha plane coding with the JPEG XT standard, and more recently with a reference software. Another solutions have been also proposed by different players with limited success. The JPEG committee decided it is the time to create a new working item, named JPEG XL, that aims to develop an image coding standard with increased quality and flexibility combined with a better compression efficiency. The evaluation of the call for proposals responses had already confirmed the industry interest, and development of core experiments has now begun. Several functionalities will be considered, like support for lossless transcoding of images represented with JPEG standard.

A 2^nd workshop on media blockchain technologies was held in Lisbon, collocated with the JPEG meeting. Touradj Ebrahimi and Frederik Temmermans opened the workshop with presentations on relevant JPEG activities such as JPEG Privacy and Security. Thereafter, Zekeriya Erkin made a presentation on blockchain, distributed trust and privacy, and Carlos Serrão presented an overview of the ISO/TC 307 standardization work on blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. The workshop concluded with a panel discussion chaired by Fernando Pereira where the interoperability of blockchain and media technologies was discussed. A 3^rd workshop is planned during the 83^rd meeting to be held in Geneva, Switzerland on March 20^th, 2019.

The 82^nd JPEG meeting had the following highlights: 

• The new working item JPEG XL
• JPEG Pleno
• JPEG XS
• HTJ2K
• JPEG Systems – JUMBF & JPEG 360
• JPEG reference software

The following summarizes various highlights during JPEG’s Lisbon meeting. As always, JPEG welcomes participation from industry and academia in all its standards activities.

JPEG XL

The JPEG Committee launched JPEG XL with the aim of developing a standard for image coding that offers substantially better compression efficiency when compared to existing image formats, along with features desirable for web distribution and efficient compression of high quality images. Subjective tests conducted by two independent research laboratories were presented at the 82^nd meeting in Lisbon and indicate promising results that compare favorably with state of the art codecs.

A development software for the JPEG XL verification model is currently being implemented. A series of experiments have been also defined for improving the above model; these experiments address new functionalities such as lossless coding and progressive decoding.

JPEG Pleno

The JPEG Committee has three activities in JPEG Pleno: Light Field, Point Cloud, and Holographic image coding.

At the Lisbon meeting, Part 2 of JPEG Pleno Light Field was refined and a Committee Draft (CD) text was prepared. A new round of core experiments targets improved subaperture image prediction quality and scalability functionality.

JPEG Pleno Holography will be hosting a workshop on March 19^th, 2019 during the 83^rd JPEG meeting in Geneva. The purpose of this workshop is to provide insights in the status of holographic applications such as holographic microscopy and tomography, displays and printing, and to assess their impact on the planned standardization specification. This workshop invites participation from both industry and academia experts. Information on the workshop can be find at https://jpeg.org/items/20190228_pleno_holography_workshop_geneva_announcement.html

JPEG XS

The JPEG Committee is pleased to announce a new milestone of the JPEG XS project, with the Profiles and Buffer Models (JPEG XS ISO/IEC 21122 Part 2) submitted to ISO for immediate publication as International Standard.

This project aims at standardization of a visually lossless low-latency and lightweight compression scheme that can be used as a mezzanine codec within any AV market. Among the targeted use cases are video transport over professional video links (SDI, IP, Ethernet), real-time video storage, memory buffers, omnidirectional video capture and rendering, and sensor compression (for example in cameras and in the automotive industry). The Core Coding System allows for visually lossless quality at moderate compression rates, scalable end-to-end latency ranging from less than a line to a few lines of the image, and low complexity real time implementations in ASIC, FPGA, CPU and GPU. The new part “Profiles and Buffer Models” defines different coding tools subsets addressing specific application fields and use cases. For more information, interested parties are invited to read the JPEG White paper on JPEG XS that has been recently published on the JPEG website (https://jpeg.org).

 HTJ2K

The JPEG Committee continues its work on ISO/IEC 15444-15 High-Throughput JPEG 2000 (HTJ2K) with the development of conformance codestreams and reference software, improving interoperability and reducing obstacles to implementation.

The HTJ2K block coding algorithm has demonstrated an average tenfold increase in encoding and decoding throughput compared to the block coding algorithm currently defined by JPEG 2000 Part 1. This increase in throughput results in an average coding efficiency loss of 10% or less in comparison to the most efficient modes of the block coding algorithm in JPEG 2000 Part 1, and enables mathematically lossless transcoding to-and-from JPEG 2000 Part 1 codestreams.

JPEG Systems – JUMBF & JPEG 360

At the 82^nd JPEG meeting, the Committee DIS ballots were completed, comments reviewed, and the standard progressed towards FDIS text for upcoming ballots on “JPEG Universal Metadata Box Format (JUMBF)” as ISO/IEC 19566-5, and “JPEG 360” as ISO/IEC 19566-6. Investigations continued to generalize the framework to other applications relying on JPEG (ISO/IEC 10918 | ITU-T.81), and JPEG Pleno Light Field.

JPEG reference software

With the JPEG Reference Software reaching FDIS stage, the JPEG Committee reaches an important milestone by extending its specifications with a new part containing a reference software. With its FDIS release, two implementations will become official reference to the most successful standard of the JPEG Committee: The fast and widely deployed libjpeg-turbo code, along with a complete implementation of JPEG coming from the Committee itself that also covers coding modes that were only known by a few experts.

Final Quote

“One of the strengths of the JPEG Committee has been in its ability to identify important trends in imaging technologies and their impact on products and services. I am delighted to see that this effort still continues and the Committee remains attentive to future.” 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 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 82^nd JPEG Meeting was held on 19-25 October 2018, in Lisbon, Portugal. The next 83^rd JPEG Meeting will be held on 16-22 March 2019, in Geneva, Switzerland.

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 83, Geneva, Switzerland, March 16 to 22, 2019
• No 84, Brussels, Belgium, July 13 to 19, 2019

The 81^st JPEG meeting was held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at which significant efforts were put into the analysis of the responses to the call for proposals on the next generation image coding standard, nicknamed JPEG XL, that is expected to provide a solution for image format with improved quality and flexibility, allied with a better compression efficiency. The responses to the call confirms the interest of different parties on this activity. Moreover, the initial  subjective and objective evaluation of the different proposals confirm a significative evolution on both quality and compression efficiency that will be provided by the future standard.

Apart the multiple activities related with several standards development, a workshop on Blockchain technologies was held at Telus facilities in Vancouver, with several talks on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies, and a Panel where the influence of these technologies on multimedia was analysed and discussed. A new workshop is planned at the 82^nd JPEG meeting to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, in January 2019.

The 81^st JPEG meeting had the following highlights:

• JPEG Completes Initial Assessment on Responses for the Next Generation Image Coding Standard (JPEG XL);
• Workshop on Blockchain technology;
• JPEG XS Core Coding System submitted to ISO for immediate publication as International Standard;
• HTJ2K achieves Draft International Status;
• JPEG Pleno defines a generic file format syntax architecture.

The following summarizes various highlights during JPEG’s Vancouver meeting.

JPEG XL completes the initial assessment of responses to the call for proposals

 The JPEG Committee launched the Next Generation Image Coding activity, also referred to as JPEG XL, with the aim of developing a standard for image coding that offers substantially better compression efficiency than existing image formats, along with features desirable for web distribution and efficient compression of high quality images. A Call for Proposals on Next Generation Image Coding was issued at the 79th JPEG meeting.

Seven submissions were received in response to the Call for Proposals. The submissions, along with the anchors, were evaluated in subjective tests by three independent research labs. At the 81st JPEG meeting in Vancouver, Canada, the proposals were evaluated using subjective and objective evaluation metrics, and a verification model (XLM) was agreed upon. Following this selection process, a series of experiments have been designed in order to compare the performance of the current XLM with alternative choices as coding components including those technologies submitted by some of the top performing submissions; these experiments are commonly referred to as core experiments and will serve to further refine and improve the XLM towards the final standard. 

Workshop on Blockchain technology

On October 16^th, 2018, JPEG organized its first workshop on Media Blockchain in Vancouver. Touradj Ebrahimi JPEG Convenor and Frederik Temmermans a leading JPEG expert, presented on the background of the JPEG standardization committee and ongoing JPEG activities such as JPEG Privacy and Security. Thereafter, Eric Paquet, Victoria Lemieux and Stephen Swift shared their experiences related to blockchain technology focusing on standardization challenges and formalization, real world adoption in media use cases and the state of the art related to consensus models. The workshop closed with an interactive discussion between the speakers and the audience, moderated by JPEG Requirements Chair Fernando Pereira.

The presentations from the workshop are available for download on the JPEG website. In January 2019, during the 82^nd JPEG meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, a 2^nd workshop will be organized to continue the discussion and interact with European stakeholders. More information about the program and registration will be made available on jpeg.org.

In addition to the workshop, JPEG issued an updated version of its white paper “JPEG White paper: Towards a Standardized Framework for Media Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies” that elaborates on the blockchain initiative, exploring relevant standardization activities, industrial needs and use cases. The white paper will be further extended in the future with more elaborated use cases and conclusions drawn from the workshops. To keep informed and get involved in the discussion, interested parties are invited to register to the ad hoc group’s mailing list via http://jpeg-blockchain-list.jpeg.org.

Touradj Ebrahimi, convenor of JPEG, giving the introductory talk in the Workshop on Blockchain technology.

JPEG XS

The JPEG committee is pleased to announce a significant milestone of the JPEG XS project, with the Core Coding System (aka JPEG XS Part-1) submitted to ISO for immediate publication as International Standard. This project aims at the standardization of a near-lossless low-latency and lightweight compression scheme that can be used as a mezzanine codec within any AV market. Among the targeted use cases are video transport over professional video links (SDI, IP, Ethernet), real-time video storage, memory buffers, omnidirectional video capture and rendering, and sensor compression (for example in cameras and in the automotive industry). The Core Coding System allows for visual transparent quality at moderate compression rates, scalable end-to-end latency ranging from less than a line to a few lines of the image, and low complexity real time implementations in ASIC, FPGA, CPU and GPU. Beside the Core Coding System, Profiles and levels (addressing specific application fields and use cases), together with the transport and container formats (defining different means to store and transport JPEG XS codestreams in files, over IP networks or SDI infrastructures) are also being finalized and their expected submission for publication as International Standard is Q1 2019.

HTJ2K

The JPEG Committee has reached a major milestone in the development of an alternative block coding algorithm for the JPEG 2000 family of standards, with ISO/IEC 15444-15 High Throughput JPEG 2000 (HTJ2K) achieving Draft International Status (DIS).

The HTJ2K algorithm has demonstrated an average tenfold increase in encoding and decoding throughput compared to the algorithm currently defined by JPEG 2000 Part 1. This increase in throughput results in an average coding efficiency loss of 10% or less in comparison to the most efficient modes of the block coding algorithm in JPEG 2000 Part 1, and enables mathematically lossless transcoding to and from JPEG 2000 Part 1 codestreams.

The JPEG Committee has begun the development of HTJ2K conformance codestreams and reference software.

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.

At the Vancouver meeting, a generic file format syntax architecture was outlined that allows for efficient exchange of these modalities by utilizing a box-based file format. This format will enable the carriage of light field, point cloud and holography data, including associated metadata for colour space specification, camera calibration etc. In the particular case of light field data, this will encompass both texture and disparity information.

For coding of point clouds and holographic data, activities are still in exploratory phase addressing the elaboration of use cases and the refinement of requirements for coding such modalities. In addition, experimental procedures are being designed to facilitate the quality evaluation and testing of technologies that will be submitted in later calls for coding technologies. Interested parties active in point cloud and holography related markets and applications, both from industry and academia are welcome to participate in this standardization activity.

Final Quote

“JPEG XL standard will enable a higher quality content while improving on compression efficiency and offering new features useful for emerging multimedia applications.” 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 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 81^st JPEG Meeting was held on 12-19 October 2018, in Vancouver, Canada. The next 82^nd JPEG Meeting will be held on 19-25 January 2019, in Lisbon, Portugal.

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 82, Lisbon, Portugal, January 19 to 25, 2019
• No 83, Geneva, Switzerland, March 16 to 22, 2019
• No 84, Brussels, Belgium, July 13 to 19, 2019

The 80^th JPEG meeting was held in Berlin, Germany, from 7 to 13 July 2018. During this meeting, JPEG issued a record number of ballots and output documents, spread through the multiple activities taking place. These record numbers are very revealing of the level of commitment of JPEG standardisation committee. A strong effort is being accomplished on the standardisation of new solutions for the emerging image technologies enabling the interoperability of different systems on the growing market of multimedia. Moreover, it is intended that these new initiatives should provide royalty-free patent licensing solutions at least in one of the available profiles, which shall promote a wider adoption of these future JPEG standards from the consumer market, and applications and systems developers.

A significant progress in low latency and high throughput standardisation initiatives has taken place at Berlin meetings. The new part 15 of JPEG 2000, known as High Throughput JPEG 2000 (HTJ2K), is finally ready and reached committee draft status. Furthermore, JPEG XS profiles and levels were released for their second and final ballot. Hence, these new low complexity standards foresee to be finalised in a short time, providing new solutions for developers and consumers on applications where mobility is important and large bandwidth is available. Virtual and augmented reality, as well as 360º images and video, are among the several applications that might benefit from these new standards.

JPEG meeting plenary in Berlin.

The 80^th JPEG meeting had the following highlights:

• HTJ2K reaches Committee Draft status;
• JPEG XS profiles and levels are under ballot;
• JPEG XL publishes additional information to the CfP;
• JPEG Systems – JUMBF & JPEG 360;
• JPEG-in-HEIF;
• JPEG Blockchain white paper;
• JPEG Pleno Light Field verification model.

The following summarizes the various highlights during JPEG’s Berlin meeting.

HTJ2K

The JPEG committee is pleased to announce a significant milestone, with ISO/IEC 15444-15 High-Throughput JPEG 2000 (HTJ2K) reaching Committee Draft status.

HTJ2K introduces a new FAST block coder to the JPEG 2000 family. The FAST block coder can be used in place of the JPEG 2000 Part 1 arithmetic block coder, and, as illustrated in Table 1, offers in average an order of magnitude increase on decoding and encoding throughput – at the expense of slightly reduced coding efficiency and elimination of quality scalability.

Table 1. Comparison between FAST block coder and JPEG 2000 Part 1 arithmetic block coder. Results were generated by optimized implementations evaluated as part of the HTJ2K activity, using professional video test images in the transcoding context specified in the Call for Proposal available at https://jpeg.org.  Figures are relative to JPEG2000 Part1 arithmetic block coder (bpp – bits per pixel).

Apart from the block coding algorithm itself, the FAST block coding algorithm does not modify the JPEG 2000 codestream, and allows mathematically lossless transcoding to and from JPEG 2000 codestreams. As a result the FAST block coding algorithm can be readily integrated into existing JPEG 2000 applications, where it can bring significant increases in processing efficiency. 

JPEG XS

This project aims at the standardization of a visually lossless low-latency and lightweight compression scheme that can be used as a mezzanine codec for the broadcast industry, Pro-AV and other markets. Targeted use cases are video transport over professional video links (SDI, IP, Ethernet), real-time video storage, memory buffers, omnidirectional video capture and rendering, and sensor compression (in particular in the automotive industry). The Core Coding System, expected to be published in Q4 2018 allows for visually lossless quality at 6:1 compression ratio for most content, 32 lines end-to-end latency, and ultra low complexity implementations in ASIC, FPGA, CPU and GPU. Following the 80th JPEG meeting in Berlin, profiles and levels (addressing specific application fields and use cases) are now under final ballot (expected publication in Q1 2019). Different means to store and transport JPEG XS codestreams in files, over IP networks or SDI infrastructures are also defined and go to a first ballot.

JPEG XL

The JPEG Committee issued a Call for Proposals (CfP) following its 79th meeting (April 2018), with the objective of seeking technologies that fulfill the objectives and scope of the Next-Generation Image Coding activity. The CfP, with all related info, can be found in https://jpeg.org/downloads/jpegxl/jpegxl-cfp.pdf. The deadline for expression of interest and registration was August 15, 2018, and submissions to the CfP were due on September 1, 2018. 

As outcome of the 80th JPEG meeting in Berlin, a document was produced containing additional information related to the objective and subjective quality assessment methodologies that will be used to evaluate the anchors and proposals to the CfP, available on https://jpeg.org/downloads/jpegxl/wg1n80024-additional-information-cfp.pdf. Moreover, a detailed workflow is described, together with the software and command lines used to generate the anchors and to compute objective quality metrics.

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

JPEG Systems – JUMBF & JPEG 360

The JPEG Committee progressed towards a common framework and definition for metadata which will improve the ability to share 360 images. At the 80th meeting, the Committee Draft ballot was completed, the comments reviewed, and is now progressing towards DIS text for upcoming ballots on “JPEG Universal Metadata Box Format (JUMBF)” as ISO/IEC 19566-5, and “JPEG 360” as ISO/IEC 19566-6. Investigations have started to apply the framework on the structure of JPEG Pleno files.

JPEG-in-HEIF

The JPEG Committee made significant progress towards standardizing how JPEG XR, JPEG 2000 and the upcoming JPEG XS will be carried in ISO/IEC 23008-12 image file container.

JPEG Blockchain

Fake news, copyright violation, media forensics, privacy and security are emerging challenges for digital media. JPEG has determined that blockchain technology has great potential as a technology component to address these challenges in transparent and trustable media transactions. However, blockchain needs to be integrated closely with a widely adopted standard to ensure broad interoperability of protected images. JPEG calls for industry participation to help define use cases and requirements that will drive the standardization process. To reach this objective, JPEG issued a white paper entitled “Towards a Standardized Framework for Media Blockchain” that elaborates on the initiative, exploring relevant standardization activities, industrial needs and use cases. In addition, JPEG plans to organise a workshop during its 81^st meeting in Vancouver on Tuesday 16^th October 2018. More information about the workshop is available on https://www.jpeg.org. To keep informed and get involved, interested parties are invited to register on the ad hoc group’s mailing list at http://jpeg-blockchain-list.jpeg.org.

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.

At its Berlin meeting, a first version of the verification model software for light field coding has been produced. This software supports the core functionality that was indented for the light field coding standard. It serves for intensive testing of the standard. JPEG Pleno Light Field Coding supports various sensors ranging from lenslet cameras to high-density camera arrays, light field related content production chains up to light field displays.

For coding of point clouds and holographic data, activities are still in exploratory phase addressing the elaboration of use cases and the refinement of requirements for coding such modalities. In addition, experimental procedures are being designed to facilitate the quality evaluation and testing of technologies that will be submitted in later calls for coding technologies. Interested parties active in point cloud and holography related markets and applications, both from industry and academia are welcome to participate in this standardization activity.

Final Quote 

“After a record number of ballots and output documents generated during its 80^th meeting, the JPEG Committee pursues its activity on the specification of effective and reliable solutions for image coding offering needed features in emerging multimedia applications. The new JPEG XS and JPEG 2000 part 15 provide low complexity compression solutions that will benefit many growing markets such as content production, virtual and augmented reality as well as autonomous cars and drones.” 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 80^th JPEG Meeting was held on 7-13 July 2018, in Berlin, Germany. The next 81^st JPEG Meeting will be held on 13-19 October 2018, in Vancouver, Canada.

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 81, Vancouver, Canada, October 13 to 19, 2018
• No 82, Lisbon, Portugal, January 19 to 25, 2019
• No 83, Geneva, Switzerland, March 16 to 22, 2019

The JPEG Committee had its 78^th meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Relevant to its ongoing standardization efforts in JPEG Privacy and Security, JPEG organized a special session to explore how to support blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to past, ongoing and future JPEG family of standards. This is motivated by the fact that considering the potential impact of such technologies in the future of multimedia, standardization will be required to enable interoperability between different systems and services of imaging relying on blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.

Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies are behind the well-known crypto-currencies. These technologies can provide means for content authorship, or intellectual property and rights management control of the multimedia information. New possibilities can be made available, namely support for tracking online use of copyrighted images and ownership of the digital content.

JPEG meeting session.

Rio de Janeiro JPEG meetings comprise mainly the following highlights:

• JPEG explores blockchain and distributed ledger technologies
• JPEG 360 Metadata
• JPEG XL
• JPEG XS
• JPEG Pleno
• JPEG Reference Software
• JPEG 25^th anniversary of the first JPEG standard

The following summarizes various activities during JPEG’s Rio de Janeiro meeting.

JPEG explores blockchain and distributed ledger technologies

During the 78th JPEG meeting in Rio de Janeiro, the JPEG committee organized a special session on blockchain and distributed ledger technologies and their impact on JPEG standards. As a result, the committee decided to explore use cases and standardization needs related to blockchain technology in a multimedia context. Use cases will be explored in relation to the recently launched JPEG Privacy and Security, as well as in the broader landscape of imaging and multimedia applications. To that end, the committee created an ad hoc group with the aim to gather input from experts to define these use cases and to explore eventual needs and advantages to support a standardization effort focused on imaging and multimedia applications. To get involved in the discussion, interested parties can register to the ad hoc group’s mailing list. Instructions to join the list are available on http://jpeg-blockchain-list.jpeg.org

JPEG 360 Metadata

The JPEG Committee notes the increasing use of multi-sensor images from multi-sensor devices, such as 360 degree capturing cameras or dual-camera smartphones available to consumers. Images from these cameras are shown on computers, smartphones, and Head Mounted Displays (HMDs). JPEG standards are commonly used for image compression and file format. However, because existing JPEG standards do not fully cover these new uses, incompatibilities have reduced the interoperability of their images, and thus reducing the widespread ubiquity, which consumers have come to expect when using JPEG files. Additionally, new modalities for interacting with images, such as computer-based augmentation, face-tagging, and object classification, require support for metadata that was not part of the original scope of JPEG.  A set of such JPEG 360 use cases is described in JPEG 360 Metadata Use Cases document. 

To avoid fragmentation in the market and to ensure wide interoperability, a standard way of interacting with multi-sensor images with richer metadata is desired in JPEG standards. JPEG invites all interested parties, including manufacturers, vendors and users of such devices to submit technology proposals for enabling interactions with multi-sensor images and metadata that fulfill the scope, objectives and requirements that are outlined in the final Call for Proposals, available on the JPEG website.

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

JPEG XL

The Next-Generation Image Compression activity (JPEG XL) has produced a revised draft Call for Proposals, and intends to publish a final Call for Proposals (CfP) following its 79th meeting (April 2018), with the objective of seeking technologies that fulfill the objectives and scope of the Next-Generation Image Compression. During the 78th meeting, objective and subjective quality assessment methodologies for anchor and proposal evaluations were discussed and analyzed. As outcome of the meeting, source code for objective quality assessment has been made available.

The draft Call for Proposals, with all related info, can be found in JPEG website. Comments are welcome and should be submitted as specified in the document. 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

Since its previous 77^th meeting, subjective quality evaluations have shown that the initial quality requirement of the JPEG XS Core Coding System has been met, i.e. a visually lossless quality at a compression ratio of 6:1 for large majority of images under test has been met. Several profiles are now under development in JPEG XS, as well as transport and container formats. 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 furthering of the specifications in the above directions. Publication of the International Standard is expected for Q3 2018.

JPEG Pleno

JPEG Pleno activity is currently divided into Pleno Light Field, Pleno Point Cloud and Pleno Holography. JPEG Pleno Light Field has been preparing a third round of core experiments for assessing the impact of individual coding modules on the overall rate-distortion performance. Moreover, it was decided to pursue with collecting additional test data, and progress with the preparation of working documents for JPEG Pleno specifications Part 1 and Part 2.

Furthermore, quality modelling studies are under consideration for both JPEG Pleno Point Clouds, and JPEG Pleno Holography. In particular, JPEG Pleno Point Cloud is considering a set of new quality metrics provided as contributions to this work item. It is expected that the new metrics replace the current state of the art as they have shown superior correlation with subjective quality as perceived by humans. Moreover, new subjective assessment models have been tested and analysed to better understand the perception of quality for such new types of visual information.

JPEG Reference Software

The JPEG committee is pleased to announce that its first JPEG image coding specifications is now augmented by a new part, ISO/IEC 10918-7, that contains a reference software. The proposed candidate software implementations have been checked for compliance with 10918-2. Considering the positive results, this new part of the JPEG standard will continue to evolve quickly. 

JPEG meeting room window view during a break.

JPEG 25^th anniversary of the first JPEG standard

JPEG’s first standard third and final 25th anniversary celebration is planned at its next 79th JPEG meeting taking place in La Jolla, CA, USA. The anniversary will be marked by a 2 hours workshop on Friday 13^th April on current and emerging JPEG technologies, followed by a social event where past JPEG committee members with relevant contributions will be awarded.

Final Quote

“Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies promise a significant impact on the future of many fields. JPEG is committed to provide standard mechanisms to apply blockchain on multimedia applications in general and on imaging in particular.” 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 meets nominally four times a year, in different world locations. The latest 77^th meeting was held from 21^st to 27^th of October 2017, in Macau, China. The next 79^th JPEG Meeting will be held on 9-15 April 2018, in La Jolla, California, USA.

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 79, La Jolla (San Diego), CA, USA, April 9 to 15, 2018
• No 80, Berlin, Germany, July 7 to13, 2018
• No 81, Vancouver, Canada, October 13 to 19, 2018

The 76^th JPEG meeting was held at Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, from 15 to 21 of July. The current standardisation activities have been complemented by the 25^th anniversary of the first JPEG standard. Simultaneously, JPEG pursues the development of different standardised solutions to meet the current challenges on imaging technology, namely on emerging new applications and on low complexity image coding. The 76^th JPEG meeting featured mainly the following highlights:

• JPEG 25^th anniversary of the first JPEG standard
• High Throughput JPEG 2000
• JPEG Pleno
• JPEG XL
• JPEG XS
• JPEG Reference Software

In the following an overview of the main JPEG activities at the 76^th meeting is given.

JPEG 25^th anniversary of the first JPEG standard – JPEG is proud tocelebrate the 25^th anniversary of its first standard. This very successful standard won an Emmy award in 1995-96 and its usage is still rising, reaching in 2015 the impressive daily rate of over 3 billion images exchanged in just a few social networks. During the celebration, a number of early members of the committee were awarded for their contributions to this standard, namely Alain Léger, Birger Niss, Jorgen Vaaben and István Sebestyén. Also Richard Clark for his long lasting contribution as JPEG Webmaster and contributions to many JPEG standards was also rewarded during the same ceremony. The celebration will continue at the next 77^th JPEG meeting that will be held in Macau, China from 21 to 27, October, 2017.

High Throughput JPEG 2000 – The JPEG committee is continuing its work towards the creation of a new Part 15 to the JPEG 2000 suite of standards, known as High Throughput JPEG 2000 (HTJ2K). In a significant milestone, the JPEG Committee has released a Call for Proposals that invites technical contributions to the HTJ2K activity. The deadline for an expression of interest is 1 October 2017, as detailed in the Call for Proposals, which is publicly available on the JPEG website at https://jpeg.org/jpeg2000/htj2k.html.

The objective of the HTJ2K activity is to identify and standardize an alternate block coding algorithm that can be used as a drop-in replacement for the block coding defined in JPEG 2000 Part-1. Based on existing evidence, it is believed that significant increases in encoding and decoding throughput are possible on modern software platforms, subject to small sacrifices in coding efficiency. An important focus of this activity is interoperability with existing systems and content libraries. To ensure this, the alternate block coding algorithm supports mathematically lossless transcoding between HTJ2K and JPEG 2000 Part-1 codestreams at the code-block level.

JPEG Pleno – The JPEG committee intends to provide a standard framework to facilitate capture, representation and exchange of omnidirectional, depth-enhanced, point cloud, light field, and holographic imaging modalities. JPEG Pleno aims at defining new tools for improved compression while providing advanced functionalities at the system level. Moreover, it targets to support data and metadata manipulation, editing, random access and interaction, protection of privacy and ownership rights as well as other security mechanisms. At the 76^th JPEG meeting in Turin, Italy, responses to the call for proposals for JPEG Pleno light field image coding were evaluated using subjective and objective evaluation metrics, and a Generic JPEG Pleno Light Field Architecture was created. The JPEG committee defined three initial core experiments to be performed before the 77^thJPEG meeting in Macau, China. Interested parties are invited to join these core experiments and JPEG Pleno standardization.

JPEG XL – The JPEG Committee is working on a new activity, known as Next generation Image Format, which aims to develop an image compression format that demonstrates higher compression efficiency at equivalent subjective quality of currently available formats and that supports features for both low-end and high-end use cases.  On the low end, the new format addresses image-rich user interfaces and web pages over bandwidth-constrained connections. On the high end, it targets efficient compression for high-quality images, including high bit depth, wide color gamut and high dynamic range imagery. A draft Call for Proposals (CfP) on JPEG XL has been issued for public comment, and is available on the JPEG website.

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 and Pro-AV markets. Targeted use cases are professional video links, IP transport, Ethernet transport, real-time video storage, video memory buffers, and omnidirectional video capture and rendering. After a Call for Proposal and the assessment of the submitted technologies, a test model for the upcoming JPEG XS standard was created. Several rounds of Core Experiments have allowed to further improving the Core Coding System, the last one being reviewed during this 76^th JPEG meeting in Torino. More core experiments are on their way, including subjective assessments. 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 further specification process. Publication of the International Standard is expected for Q3 2018.

JPEG Reference Software – Together with the celebration of 25th anniversary of the first JPEG Standard, the committee continued with its important activities around the omnipresent JPEG image format; while all newer JPEG standards define a reference software guiding users in interpreting and helping them in implementing a given standard, no such references exist for the most popular image format of the Internet age. The JPEG committee therefore issued a call for proposals https://jpeg.org/items/20170728_cfp_jpeg_reference_software.html asking interested parties to participate in the submission and selection of valuable and stable implementations of JPEG (formally, Rec. ITU-T T.81 | ISO/IEC 10918-1).

Final Quote

“The experience shared by developers of the first JPEG standard during celebration was an inspiring moment that will guide us to further the ongoing developments of standards responding to new challenges in imaging applications.” said Prof. Touradj Ebrahimi, the Convener 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 Interna
tional 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 group meets nominally three times a year, in Europe, North America and Asia. The latest 75^th    meeting was held on March 26-31, 2017, in Sydney, Australia. The next (76^th) JPEG Meeting will be held on July 15-21, 2017, in Torino, Italy.

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

If you would like to stay posted on JPEG activities, please subscribe to the jpeg-news mailing list on https://listserv.uni-stuttgart.de/mailman/listinfo/jpeg-news.  Moreover, you can follow JPEG twitter account on http://twitter.com/WG1JPEG.

Future JPEG meetings are planned as follows:

• No. 77, Macau, CN, 23 – 27 October 2017

The 74th JPEG meeting was held at ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, from 15 to 20 January featuring the following highlights:

• A Final Call for Proposals on JPEG Pleno was issued focusing on light field coding;
• Creation of a test model for the upcoming JPEG XS standard;
• A draft Call for Proposals for JPEG Privacy & Security was issued;
• JPEG AIC technical report finalized on Guidelines for image coding system evaluation;
• An AHG was created to investigate the evidence of high throughput JPEG 2000;
• An AHG on next generation image compression standard was initiated to explore a future image coding format with superior compression efficiency.

JPEG Pleno kicks off its activities towards standardization of light field coding

At the 74^th JPEG meeting in Geneva, Switzerland the final Call for Proposals (CfP) on JPEG Pleno was issued particularly focusing on light field coding. The CfP is available here.

The call encompasses coding technologies for lenslet light field cameras, and content produced by high-density arrays of cameras. In addition, system-level solutions associated with light field coding and processing technologies that have a normative impact are called for. In a later stage, calls for other modalities such as point cloud, holographic and omnidirectional data will be issued, encompassing image representations and new and rich forms of visual data beyond the traditional planar image representations.

JPEG Pleno intends to provide a standard framework to facilitate capture, representation and exchange of these omnidirectional, depth-enhanced, point cloud, light field, and holographic imaging modalities. It aims to define new tools for improved compression while providing advanced functionalities at the system level. Moreover, it targets to support data and metadata manipulation, editing, random access and interaction, protection of privacy and ownership rights as well as other security mechanisms.

JPEG XS aims at the standardization of a visually lossless low-latency lightweight compression scheme that can be used for a wide range of applications including mezzanine codec for the broadcast industry and Pro-AV markets. Targeted use cases are professional video links, IP transport, Ethernet transport, real-time video storage, video memory buffers, and omnidirectional video capture and rendering. After a Call for Proposal issued on March 11^th 2016 and the assessment of the submitted technologies, a test model for the upcoming JPEG XS standard was created during the 73rd JPEG meeting in Chengdu and the results of a first set of core experiments have been reviewed during the 74^th JPEG meeting in Geneva. More core experiments are on their way before finalizing the standard: 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 further specification process.

JPEG Privacy & Security aims at developing a standard for realizing secure image information sharing which is capable of ensuring privacy, maintaining data integrity, and protecting intellectual property rights (IPR). JPEG Privacy & Security will explore ways on how to design and implement the necessary features without significantly impacting coding performance while ensuring scalability, interoperability, and forward and backward compatibility with current JPEG standard frameworks.

A draft Call for Proposals for JPEG Privacy & Security has been issued and the JPEG committee invites interested parties to contribute to this standardisation activity in JPEG Systems. The draft of CfP is available here.

The call addresses protection mechanisms and technologies such as handling hierarchical levels of access and multiple protection levels for metadata and image protection, checking integrity of image data and embedded metadata, and supporting backward and forward compatibility with JPEG coding technologies. Interested parties are encouraged to subscribe to the JPEG Privacy & Security email reflector for collecting more information. A final version of the JPEG Privacy & Security Call for Proposals is expected at the 75th JPEG meeting located in Sydney, Australia.

JPEG AIC provides guidance and standard procedures for advanced image coding evaluation.  At this meeting JPEG completed a technical report: TR 29170-1 Guidelines for image coding system evaluation. This report is a compendium of JPEGs best practices in evaluation that draws sources from several different international standards and international recommendations. The report discusses use of objective tools, subjective procedures and computational analysis techniques and when to use the different tools. Some of the techniques are tried and true tools familiar to image compression experts and vision scientists. Several tools represent new fields where few tools have been available, such as the evaluation of coding systems for high dynamic range content.

High throughput JPEG 2000

The JPEG committee started a new activity for high throughput JPEG 2000 and an AHG was created to investigate the evidence for such kind of standard. Experts are invited to participate in this expert group and to join the mailing list.

Final Quote

“JPEG continues to offer standards that redefine imaging products and services contributing to a better society without borders.” said Prof. Touradj Ebrahimi, the Convener 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 and JPEG Systems and JPEG PLENO families of imaging standards.

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

If you would like to stay posted on JPEG activities, please subscribe to the jpeg-news mailing list on https://listserv.uni-stuttgart.de/mailman/listinfo/jpeg-news.   Moreover, you can follow JPEG twitter account on http://twitter.com/WG1JPEG.

Future JPEG meetings are planned as follows:

• No. 75, Sydney, AU, 26 – 31 March, 2017
• No. 76, Torino, IT, 17 – 21 July, 2017
• No. 77, Macau, CN, 23 – 27 October 2017