Title
Some little-known aspects of the history of the JPEG still picture-coding standard, ITU-T T.81 | ISO/IEC 10918-1 (1986-1993)
Abstract
The JPEG-1 standard of the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) whose specification was submitted to and approved by the Consultative Committee for International Telephony and Telegraphy (CCITT; now ITU-T) in 1992 and by ISO/IEC JTC1 in 1994 is still the most successful still-picture compression standard on the market. Much has been written about the standard itself, how the image compression functions, but less about the unique policies and processes of the JPEG, the origins of the requirements of the JPEG-1 format, the common components principle, the fate of the targeted CCITT/ITU applications and the nature of those applications that made JPEG one of the world’s most successful standards. It is also not widely known that JPEG is one of the first standards to be followed and supported by an open source software (OSS) project and code –- developed and distributed by the Independent JPEG Group (IJG) – that has provided a substantial drive towards market penetration and contributed to the wide acceptance of the JPEG standard. This paper also presents an analysis of the JPEG-IJG co-operation and draws some conclusions about its nature. Finally, the lessons learned are discussed.
Author
István Sebestyén
Ecma International
István Sebestyén, when working on the JPEG standard, was chief engineer at Siemens, Munich, Germany and the ITU CCITT special rapporteur for new image communication (one of the "parent" bodies of JPEG). In this capacity, Sebestyén had a key role in shaping the special rules and procedures of the original JPEG committee, the formulation of the CCITT requirements for JPEG and specification of the common components used in the JPEG format, as well as the approval process of Recommendation ITU-T T.81 and later (between 1986 and 2000) the entire ITU-T T.80 and T.800 Series of Recommendations. He was also founding member of the Original JPEG Development Team.
