base mode with certain processing restrictions (limited number of image components and color coding). 7.80.1 — Requirements, In order to ensure the widespread distribution and application of JPEG, the fol lowing requirements were established and fulfilled [Wal9 1} +The standard should be independent of image size. ‘I should be applicable to any image aspect ratio and any pixel aspect ratio, ‘+The color space and the number of colors used should be independent of one another ‘Image content may be of any complexity, with any statistical characteristics ‘The JPEG standard should be start-of-the-art (or near) regarding the compression factor and image quality +The processing complexity should permit a software solution to run on a large ‘number of available general-purpose processors, and should be drastically reduced with the use of special-purpose hardware Sequential (line by line) and progressive (successive refinement of the whole image) decoding should both be possible. A lossless, hierarchical coding of the ‘same image with different resolutions should also be possible ‘The user ean select parameters to trade off the quality of the reproduced image, the compression processing time, and the size of the compressed image. 7.302 JPEG Overview Applications do not have to include both an encoder and a decoder. In many appl cations only one of them is needed. The encoded data stream has a fixed interchange Format that includes encoded image data, as well xs the chosen parameters and tables of the coding process, enabling decoding. If thee is 2 common context between the coder and the decoder (e.g. ifthe coder and decoder are parts of the same application) then there can be an abbreviated interchange format. This format includes Few if any of the required tables (Appendix A in [Org93] describes this format in detail). The inte change format includes all information required during decoding, if this information not available as part of the common context, In the regular, non-abbreviated mode, the interchange format includes all information required to decode without prior knowl edge of the coding process Figure 7-3 outlines the fundamental steps of JPEG compression in accordance with the general scheme illustrated in Figure 7-1. JPEG defines several image compres- sion modes by selecting different combinations of these stops,