Free Lossless Image Format • Hacker News Board

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#41

Post by digi_owl » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:23 PM UTC

iraphael wrote: post #23

This is really interesting. One of the most interesting parts is the progressive decoding/responsive images. http://flif.info/example.php (go to the bottom of the page). Basically, the last example shows that, if you want a scaled version of the image, you can simply stop decompressing. No need for multiple image files. Just create one with very high quality and decompress until you get the quality you want and scale…

Makes me think of the web of old, where sometimes an image would load in multiple passes.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#42

Post by digi_owl » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:24 PM UTC

rwinn wrote: post #19

Wow! Higher compression than any other format, full transparency support, progressive/partial loading AND animations?! I can't wait for this to get widespread adoption! Github repo here btw: https://github.com/jonsneyers/FLIF

GPLv3 will be a hard sell...

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#43

Post by michaelmior » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:25 PM UTC

iraphael wrote: post #23

This is really interesting. One of the most interesting parts is the progressive decoding/responsive images. http://flif.info/example.php (go to the bottom of the page). Basically, the last example shows that, if you want a scaled version of the image, you can simply stop decompressing. No need for multiple image files. Just create one with very high quality and decompress until you get the quality you want and scale…

That part is pretty cool. If this were widely deployed, I could imagine this making the use of responsive images much easier.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#44

Post by jttam » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:26 PM UTC

Does it use a middle out algorithm? :)

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#45

Post by davexunit » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:26 PM UTC

aaronharnly wrote: post #25

raving-richard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is GPL3, it won't be supported by Google on Android, by Apple probably anywhere, or by Microsoft anywhere. In other words, it's a lovely idea, but due to a poor choice of license, it won't get any adoption. C.f. Ogg Vorbis, where the license for the specification is public domain, and the license for the libraries are BSD-like. To quote FSF: Some libraries implement free standards that are competing agains…

Agree – using GPL rather than LGPL or BSD in the reference implementation will prevent this from being widely adopted. UPDATE: See lt's helpful comment above.

So, the free world can use this library and the proprietary world will have to develop their own if they want to use the format. Proprietary software developers get to piggy back off of tons of free software, and then when someone decides that they don't want to enable that for their particular program/library, people complain about it. It makes no sense.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#46

Post by michaelmior » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:26 PM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #41

iraphael wrote: post #23

This is really interesting. One of the most interesting parts is the progressive decoding/responsive images. http://flif.info/example.php (go to the bottom of the page). Basically, the last example shows that, if you want a scaled version of the image, you can simply stop decompressing. No need for multiple image files. Just create one with very high quality and decompress until you get the quality you want and scale…

Makes me think of the web of old, where sometimes an image would load in multiple passes.

I assume you're talking about progressive JPEGs. These are still fairly common in my experience. It's just that with today's typical connection speed, you'll rarely notice.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#47

Post by linkydinkandyou » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:27 PM UTC

iraphael wrote: post #23

This is really interesting. One of the most interesting parts is the progressive decoding/responsive images. http://flif.info/example.php (go to the bottom of the page). Basically, the last example shows that, if you want a scaled version of the image, you can simply stop decompressing. No need for multiple image files. Just create one with very high quality and decompress until you get the quality you want and scale…

JPEG 2000 has that same feature.

FLIF claims it will beat the lossless compression ratio of JPEG 2000

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#48

Post by talmand » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:27 PM UTC

kcorbitt wrote: post #30

onion2k wrote: post #20

The 'only download as much of the file as you need' way of managing detail levels is brilliant.

Totally. I really recommend watching the video under the "Progressive and lossless" heading. With just 20% of the file downloaded the image quality was already subjectively quite good. I didn't even know progressive loading within a single file was a thing, but it's a neat trick.

Isn't a progressive jpeg loaded from a single file? Or are you referring to a different context of progressive with this file type?

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#49

Post by linkydinkandyou » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:30 PM UTC

kcorbitt wrote: post #30

onion2k wrote: post #20

The 'only download as much of the file as you need' way of managing detail levels is brilliant.

Totally. I really recommend watching the video under the "Progressive and lossless" heading. With just 20% of the file downloaded the image quality was already subjectively quite good. I didn't even know progressive loading within a single file was a thing, but it's a neat trick.

It's been a thing for at least 20 years, when "wavelet" compression first started being used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_2000#Progressive_transmis...

And the Digital Cinema formats widely used today rely on this so a 2K or 4K stream can be extracted from the same file.

What's "new" about FLIF is the better lossless compression rate

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#50

Post by bildung » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:30 PM UTC

versteegen wrote: post #37

lt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the forum thread I linked elsewhere, the author wrote: "In terms of licenses: GPL is all you get for now. I can always add more liberal licenses later. LGPL for a decoding library, or maybe even MIT? We'll see, I'm not in a hurry." https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/18485-free-lossless-ima...

Wow, starting with an unusable license with the intention to switch to a more practical one later is a weird strategy. I guess that's one way to discourage people from adopting it before it's ready. (Edit: As I clarified, I meant usable for adoption in other non-GPL projects. But OK, I deserve the downvotes for adding very little, and will think twice before posting such a reply next time)

> Wow, starting with an unusable license

If you want to use it commercially without publishing source, just buy a licence from the author. Buying licences isn't exactly uncommon. Or are OS X/iOS/Windows also unusable for you?