Interest in image compression for internet and other multimedia applications has spurred research into compression techniques that will increase storage capabilities and transmission speed. This tutorial provides a practical guide to fractal and wavelet approaches--two techniques with exciting potential. It is intended for scientists, engineers, researchers, and students. It provides both introductory information and implementation details. Three Windows-compatible software systems are included so that readers can explore the new technologies in depth. Complete C/C++ source code is provided, enabling readers to go beyond the accompanying software. The mathematical presentation is accessible to advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students in technical fields

1. Introduction -- Images -- The image compression problem -- Information, entropy, and data modeling -- Scalar and vector quantization -- Transform methods -- Color images -- The focus of this book

Pt. I: Fractal image compression. 2. Iterated Function Systems -- Iterated function systems as the motivation for fractal image compression -- Metric spaces -- Iterated function systems -- Implementation of an iterated function system -- Examples -- 3. Fractal encoding of grayscale images -- A metric space for grayscale images -- Partitioned iterated function systems (PIFS) -- Fractal image encoding -- Image decoding -- Storing the encoded image -- Resolution independence -- Operator representation of fractal image encoding -- 4. Speeding up fractal encoding -- Feature extraction -- Domain classification -- Other approaches for speeding up fractal encoding

Pt. II. Wavelet image compression. 5. Simple wavelets -- Introduction -- Averaging and detail -- Scaling functions and wavelet functions -- Multiresolution analysis -- Normalization -- Wavelet transform -- Inverse wavelet transform -- Wavelet transform in two dimensions -- 6. Daubechies wavelets -- Weighted averages and differences -- Properties and conditions on the coefficients -- Wavelet transform -- Scaling functions and wavelet functions -- Daubechies wavelets -- Simple image compression with Daubechies wavelets -- Other wavelet systems -- 7. Wavelet image compression techniques -- Introduction -- Wavelet zerotrees -- Hybrid fractal-wavelet coding -- 8. Comparison of fractal and wavelet image compression -- Rate distortion -- Encoding speed -- Larger images -- Conclusions -- Appendix A: Using the accompanying software -- IFS System -- IMG System: fractal image compression -- WAV System: wavelet image compression -- Appendix B: Utility Windows Library (UWL) -- Windows programming -- Utility Windows Library (UWL) -- Windows programming references -- Appendix C: Organization of the accompanying software source code -- IFS System -- IMG System -- WAV System