Tutorials on the fundamentals tools used in image and video compression.

The Video Coding Tutorial (VCT) repository provides a set of Jupyter notebooks to explain the fundations of image and data compression with focus on the following aspects:

• Entropy coding
• Transform coding
• Quantisation

The material has been prepared with the aim to complement the theoretical fundations that can be learned from some of the classical text books on image and video compression (see below for a list of references). It is believed that seeing how the theory is put into limited, yet practical examples, readers will strengthen their understanding in the area of compresison for visual data.

Some good textbooks that can be used to learn the fundamentals as well as being up to date with the state-of-the-art are:

• N. S. Jayant and P. Noll., "Digital coding of waveforms", Prentice Hall, 688 pages, 1984.
• A. N. Netravali, B. G. Haskell, "Digital pictures - Representation, compression, and standards", 2nd edition, Plenum Press, 686 pages, 1995.
• D. S. Taubman, M. W. Marcellin, "JPEG2000 - Image compression fundamentals, standards and practice", Kluwer Academic Press, 773 pages, 2002.
• D. Bull, "Communicating pictures: A course in image and video coding", Associate Press, 560 pages, 2014.

The requirements.txt file lists all the pacakges required to use the tutorials. If using pip, just type the following in a command terminal window:

> pip install -r requirements.txt

The copyright in this collection of software modules is being made available under the BSD License, included below. This software may be subject to other third party and contributor rights, including patent rights, and no such rights are granted under this license. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
• Neither the name of the author may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Copyright(c) 2021 Matteo Naccari - All Rights Reserved.

Feel free to submit pull requests and issue tickets with suggestions to improve, fix and expand this collection of tutorials.