1. Development and objectives

In 1986, under the joint auspices of ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union), a joint working group was formed, the Joint Photographic Experts Group JPEG, responsible for the digital compression and coding of still images. The JPEG standard was published in September 1992 (ITU-T Rec. T.81) and later (ISO/IEC10918-1:1994). The compression format it specified has since been widely used, particularly in consumer digital photography. This success is due to its technical performance, the fact that no royalties are payable, and the availability of free, efficient software (codec) from the Independent JPEG Group.

However, JPEG's limitations (in terms of lossless mathematical quality, scalability, etc.) became apparent with the need to compress images in fields...