Better Portable Graphics

Last updated
Better Portable Graphics
Filename extension
.bpg
Internet media type image/bpg, image/x-bpg
Magic number 42 50 47 fb
Initial release2014 (2014)
Latest release
0.9.8
21 April 2018;5 years ago (2018-04-21)
Type of format lossy/lossless bitmap image format
Extended from HEVC
Open format?Yes
Website bellard.org/bpg

Better Portable Graphics (BPG) is a file format for coding digital images, which was created by programmer Fabrice Bellard in 2014. He has proposed it as a replacement for the JPEG image format as the more compression-efficient alternative in terms of image quality or file size. [1] It is based on the intra-frame encoding of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video compression standard. [2] Tests on photographic images in July 2014 found that BPG produced smaller files for a given quality than JPEG, JPEG XR and WebP. [3]

Contents

The format has been designed to be portable and work in low memory environments, and used in portable handheld and IoT devices, where those properties are particularly important. Current research works on designing and developing more energy-efficient BPG hardware which can then be integrated in portable devices such as digital cameras. [4] [5]

While there is no built-in native support for BPG in any mainstream browsers, websites can still deliver BPG images to all browsers by including a JavaScript library written by Bellard. [1] Others followed Bellards idea and created the AVIF image format based on the AV1 video codec, which is patent free and therefore got implemented in browsers.

Origin in HEVC

HEVC has several profiles defined for extending its intra-frame encoding to still images at various bit depths and color formats, including "Main Still Picture," "Main 4:4:4 Still Picture," and "Main 4:4:4 16 Still Picture profiles." BPG is a wrapper for the "Main 4:4:4 16 Still Picture" profile up to 14 bits per sample.

Specifications

BPG's container format is intended to be more suited to a generic image format than the raw bitstream format used in HEVC (which is otherwise ordinarily used within some other wrapper format, such as the .mp4 file format). [2] [6]

BPG supports the color formats known as 4:4:4, 4:2:2, and 4:2:0. [2] Support for a separately coded extra channel is also included for an alpha channel or the fourth channel of a CMYK image. [2] Metadata support is included for Exif, ICC profiles, and XMP. [2]

Color space support is included for YCbCr with ITU-R BT.601, BT.709, and BT.2020 (non-constant luminance) definitions, YCgCo, RGB, CMYK, and grayscale.

Support for HEVC's lossy and lossless data compression is included.

BPG supports animation. [1]

Patents

According to Bellard's site [1] BPG may be covered by some of the patents on HEVC, but any device licensed to support HEVC will also be covered for BPG. Patent issues may prevent JPEG replacement by BPG despite BPG's better technical performance. [6]

Other proposed JPEG replacements

Several other image formats have also been proposed as JPEG replacements, including: [3] [7]

Related Research Articles

In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression reduces bits by identifying and eliminating statistical redundancy. No information is lost in lossless compression. Lossy compression reduces bits by removing unnecessary or less important information. Typically, a device that performs data compression is referred to as an encoder, and one that performs the reversal of the process (decompression) as a decoder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lossy compression</span> Data compression approach that reduces data size while discarding or changing some of it

In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size for storing, handling, and transmitting content. The different versions of the photo of the cat on this page show how higher degrees of approximation create coarser images as more details are removed. This is opposed to lossless data compression which does not degrade the data. The amount of data reduction possible using lossy compression is much higher than using lossless techniques.

Multiple-image Network Graphics (MNG) is a graphics file format published in 2001 for animated images. Its specification is publicly documented and there are free software reference implementations available.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PNG</span> Family of lossless compression file formats for image files

Portable Network Graphics is a raster-graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)—unofficially, the initials PNG stood for the recursive acronym "PNG's not GIF".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Image compression</span> Reduction of image size to save storage and transmission costs

Image compression is a type of data compression applied to digital images, to reduce their cost for storage or transmission. Algorithms may take advantage of visual perception and the statistical properties of image data to provide superior results compared with generic data compression methods which are used for other digital data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video codec</span> Digital video processing

A video codec is software or hardware that compresses and decompresses digital video. In the context of video compression, codec is a portmanteau of encoder and decoder, while a device that only compresses is typically called an encoder, and one that only decompresses is a decoder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Compression artifact</span> Distortion of media caused by lossy data compression

A compression artifact is a noticeable distortion of media caused by the application of lossy compression. Lossy data compression involves discarding some of the media's data so that it becomes small enough to be stored within the desired disk space or transmitted (streamed) within the available bandwidth. If the compressor cannot store enough data in the compressed version, the result is a loss of quality, or introduction of artifacts. The compression algorithm may not be intelligent enough to discriminate between distortions of little subjective importance and those objectionable to the user.

An image file format is a file format for a digital image. There are many formats that can be used, such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Most formats up until 2022 were for storing 2D images, not 3D ones. The data stored in an image file format may be compressed or uncompressed. If the data is compressed, it may be done so using lossy compression or lossless compression. For graphic design applications, vector formats are often used. Some image file formats support transparency.

JPEG XR is an image compression standard for continuous tone photographic images, based on the HD Photo specifications that Microsoft originally developed and patented. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, and is the preferred image format for Ecma-388 Open XML Paper Specification documents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Progressive Graphics File</span> File format

PGF is a wavelet-based bitmapped image format that employs lossless and lossy data compression. PGF was created to improve upon and replace the JPEG format. It was developed at the same time as JPEG 2000 but with a focus on speed over compression ratio.

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding. In comparison to AVC, HEVC offers from 25% to 50% better data compression at the same level of video quality, or substantially improved video quality at the same bit rate. It supports resolutions up to 8192×4320, including 8K UHD, and unlike the primarily 8-bit AVC, HEVC's higher fidelity Main 10 profile has been incorporated into nearly all supporting hardware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WebP</span> Image file format

WebP is a raster graphics file format developed by Google intended as a replacement for JPEG, PNG, and GIF file formats. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, as well as animation and alpha transparency.

A video coding format is a content representation format of digital video content, such as in a data file or bitstream. It typically uses a standardized video compression algorithm, most commonly based on discrete cosine transform (DCT) coding and motion compensation. A specific software, firmware, or hardware implementation capable of compression or decompression in a specific video coding format is called a video codec.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free Lossless Image Format</span> Raster graphics format

Free Lossless Image Format (FLIF) is a lossless image format claiming to outperform PNG, lossless WebP, lossless BPG and lossless JPEG 2000 in terms of compression ratio on a variety of inputs.

High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for storing individual digital images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video.

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 that includes semiconductor firms, video on demand providers, video content producers, software development companies and web browser vendors. The AV1 bitstream specification includes a reference video codec. In 2018, Facebook conducted testing that approximated real-world conditions, and the AV1 reference encoder achieved 34%, 46.2% and 50.3% higher data compression than libvpx-vp9, x264 High profile, and x264 Main profile respectively.

JPEG XL is a royalty-free raster-graphics file format that supports both lossy and lossless compression. It is designed to outperform existing raster formats and thus become their universal replacement.

AV1 Image File Format (AVIF) is an open, royalty-free image file format specification for storing images or image sequences compressed with AV1 in the HEIF container format. It competes with HEIC, which uses the same container format built upon ISOBMFF, but HEVC for compression. Version 1.0.0 of the AVIF specification was finalized in February 2019.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "BPG Image format". Fabrice Bellard. 2014. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "BPG specification" . Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Lossy Compressed Image Formats Study". Mozilla Corporation. Archived from the original on 2016-09-28.
  4. U. Albalawi, S. P. Mohanty and E. Kougianos, "Energy-Efficient Design of the Secure Better Portable Graphics Compression Architecture for Trusted Image Communication in the IoT", in Proceedings of the 15th IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI), 2016, pp. 302--307.
  5. U. Albalawi, S. P. Mohanty, and E. Kougianos, “A Hardware Architecture for Better Portable Graphics (BPG) Compression Encoder”, in Proceedings of the 1st IEEE International Symposium on Nanoelectronic and Information Systems, 2015, pp. 291-296.
  6. 1 2 "BPG, a still-image format from video compression". LWN.net.
  7. "BPG Image Comparison" . Retrieved 2015-02-10.
  8. "AV1 Still Image File Format (AVIF)". aomediacodec.github.io. Retrieved 2018-04-15.