Image Compression for Storage and Transmission of Digitized Images

Project summary:

The Mn/DOT Office of Land Management provides digital mapping products for maintaining our state's transportation system. Due to current trend towards digitization of the image/map data and Web-based delivery of services, there is a growing need for compressing large image files (such as aerial photographs and maps). Such a compression is needed for efficient storage and retrieval of image data, and for image transmission over (low-capacity) Internet connections. The proposed research will investigate applicability of several commercial and research methods for image compression to the needs of the Office of Land Management. This project will benefit users of large image files (i.e., typical 3K by 4K or 9K by 9K pixels). Specific benefits include faster transmission and lower storage needs for such (large) images. This project will investigate the trade-off between the image quality and image compression for several image compression algorithms using real-life images, in order to make recommendations for selecting the best image compression algorithm for the needs of the Office of Land Management.