High Quality Document Image Compression with DjVu

Abstract: We present a new image compression technique called “DjVu” that is specifically geared towards the compression of high-resolution, high-quality images of scanned documents in color. This enables fast transmission of document images over low-speed connections, while faithfully reproducing the visual aspect of the document, including color, fonts, pictures, and paper texture. The DjVu compressor separates the text and drawings, which needs a high spatial resolution, from the pictures and backgrounds, which are smoother and can be coded at a lower spatial resolution. Then, several novel techniques are used to maximize the compression ratio: the bi-level foreground image is encoded with AT&T's proposal to the new JBIG2 fax standard, and a new wavelet-based compression method is used for the backgrounds and pictures. Both techniques use a new adaptive binary arithmetic coder called the Z-coder. A typical magazine page in color at 300dpi can be compressed down to between 40 to 60 KB, approximately 5 to 10 times better than JPEG for a similar level of subjective quality. A real-time, memory efficient version of the decoder was implemented, and is available as a plug-in for popular web browsers.

Léon Bottou, Patrick Haffner, Paul G. Howard, Patrice Simard, Yoshua Bengio and Yann Le Cun: High Quality Document Image Compression with DjVu, Journal of Electronic Imaging, 7(3):410-425, 1998.
@article{bottou-98,
author = {Bottou, L\'{e}on and Haffner, Patrick and Howard, Paul G. and Simard, Patrice and Bengio, Yoshua and {Le Cun}, Yann},
title = {High Quality Document Image Compression with {DjVu}},
journal = {Journal of Electronic Imaging},
year = {1998},
volume = {7},
number = {3},
pages = {410-425},
url = {http://leon.bottou.org/papers/bottou-98},
}