On Fri, Dec 10, 1999 at 12:17:49AM +0100, Max Moritz Sievers wrote:
> Hello,
> is there a plan to support JPEG2000?
I don't think so, unless JPEG change their mind about the direction for
future imaging standards.
<cynical>
IMHO JPEG 2000 is an attempt to fix a mistake made in the original JPEG
design which permitted anyone to implement a baseline JPEG codec without
implementing any of the patented techniques (most obviously arithmetic
coding) which JPEG members hoped to foist on the world.
JBIG and JPEG 2000 both mandate use of one or more patented techniques
which are owned by companies that take part in JPEG. You will notice
that no-one is using JBIG for anything much, and also that no-one is
announcing immediate plans for JPEG 2000 either.
</cynical>
I haven't seen any of the results from early JPEG 2000 trials (which
were intended to eliminate some techniques from consideration for the
final JPEG 2000 codec design) but I can't say that I'm hopeful that
usable data will survive the factor of two decrease in size needed to
convince users to switch in the absence of other compelling reasons.
The extended support for metadata is welcome, but already exists in
JNG, which will be standardised earlier than JPEG 2000 and is part of
an already succesful format family with no patent burden. Since JNG
metadata is interchangeable with the already understood PNG format,
and the codec is baseline JPEG, support for it should be forthcoming
very soon after the standard is set.
I would welcome a standard wavelets codec, and an associated standard
format, but I'm not very interested unless they are either free of
patents or include a free-of-charge unlimited license. Neither of
these seems likely at this time from JPEG 2000, so I intend to
ignore it. Hopefully everyone else in the industry has seen the light
by now and will also ignore non-free image formats in future.
If it becomes widely used, I'm sure someone will be willing to risk
being sued (as I have with TIFF implementation) and provide an
illegal JPEG 2000 plug-in for Gimp, or otherwise a proprietary
software company will make use of the LGPL libgimp and provide
working JPEG 2000 support that way, but don't hold your breath :)
Nick.
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