Fundamentals of Multimedia 3rd ed.

, Chapter 7

Chapter 7
Lossless Compression Algorithms
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Basics of Information Theory
7.3 Run-Length Coding
7.4 Variable-Length Coding (VLC)
7.5 Dictionary-based Coding
7.6 Arithmetic Coding
7.7 Lossless Image Compression

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Fundamentals of Multimedia 3rd ed., Chapter 7

7.1 Introduction
• Compression: the process of coding that will
effectively reduce the total number of bits needed
to represent certain information.

Fig. 7.1: A General Data Compression Scheme.

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Introduction (Cont’d)
• If the compression and decompression processes induce no
information loss, then the compression scheme is lossless;
otherwise, it is lossy.

• Compression ratio:

B0
compression ratio = (7.1)
B1

B0 – number of bits before compression

B1 – number of bits after compression

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7.2 Basics of Information Theory

• The entropy η of an information source with alphabet S = {s1, s2,
. . . , sn} is:
n
1
= ( S ) ∑ pi log 2
η H=
i =1 pi (7.2)
n
= −∑ pi log 2 pi (7.3)
i =1

pi – probability that symbol si will occur in S.

1
log – indicates the amount of information (self-information as
2 pi
defined by Shannon) contained in si, which corresponds to the
number of bits needed to encode si.

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Distribution of Gray-Level Intensities

Fig. 7.2: Histograms for Two Gray-level Images.

• Fig. 7.2(a) shows the histogram of an image with uniform distribution of

gray-level intensities, i.e., ∀i pi = 1/256. Hence, the entropy of this
image is:

log2256 = 8 (7.4)

• Fig. 7.2(b) shows the histogram of an image with two possible values. Its
entropy is 0.92.

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Entropy and Code Length

• As can be seen in Eq. (7.3): the entropy η is a weighted-sum
of terms log 2 p1i ; hence it represents the average amount of
information contained per symbol in the source S.

• The entropy η specifies the lower bound for the average

number of bits to code each symbol in S, i.e.,

η≤l (7.5)

l - the average length (measured in bits) of the codewords

produced by the encoder.

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7.3 Run-Length Coding

• Memoryless Source: an information source that is

independently distributed. Namely, the value of the current
symbol does not depend on the values of the previously
appeared symbols.

• Instead of assuming memoryless source, Run-Length Coding

(RLC) exploits memory present in the information source.

• Rationale for RLC: if the information source has the

property that symbols tend to form continuous groups, then
such symbol and the length of the group can be coded.

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7.4 Variable-Length Coding (VLC)

7.4.1 Shannon-Fano Algorithm

— a top-down approach

1. Sort the symbols according to the frequency count of their occurrences.

2. Recursively divide the symbols into two parts, each with approximately
the same number of counts, until all parts contain only one symbol.

An Example: coding of “HELLO”

Symbol H E L O
Count 1 1 2 1
Frequency count of the symbols in ”HELLO”.

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Fig. 7.3: Coding Tree for HELLO by Shannon-Fano.

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Table 7.1: Result of Performing Shannon-Fano on

HELLO
Symbol Count Log2 Code # of bits
used
L 2 1.32 0 2
H 1 2.32 10 2
E 1 2.32 110 3
O 1 2.32 111 3
TOTAL # of bits: 10

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Fig. 7.4: Another coding tree for HELLO by Shannon-Fano.

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Table 7.2: Another Result of Performing Shannon-Fano

on HELLO (see Fig. 7.4)

Symbol Count Log2 Code # of bits

used
L 2 1.32 00 4
H 1 2.32 01 2
E 1 2.32 10 2
O 1 2.32 11 2
TOTAL # of bits: 10

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7.4.2 Huffman Coding

ALGORITHM 7.1 Huffman Coding Algorithm
— a bottom-up approach

1. Initialization: Put all symbols on a list sorted according to their frequency

counts.

2. Repeat until the list has only one symbol left:

1) From the list pick two symbols with the lowest frequency counts. Form
a Huffman subtree that has these two symbols as child nodes and create
a parent node.
2) Assign the sum of the children’s frequency counts to the parent and
insert it into the list such that the order is maintained.
3) Delete the children from the list.

3. Assign a codeword for each leaf based on the path from the root.

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Fig. 7.5: Coding Tree for “HELLO” using the Huffman Algorithm.

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Huffman Coding (Cont’d)

In Fig. 7.5, new symbols P1, P2, P3 are created to
refer to the parent nodes in the Huffman coding
tree. The contents in the list are illustrated
below:
After initialization: L H E O
After iteration (a): L P1 H
After iteration (b): L P2
After iteration (c): P3

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Properties of Huffman Coding

1. Unique Prefix Property: No Huffman code is a prefix of any
other Huffman code - precludes any ambiguity in decoding.

2. Optimality: minimum redundancy code - proved optimal for a

given data model (i.e., a given, accurate, probability
distribution):
• The two least frequent symbols will have the same length for their
Huffman codes, differing only at the last bit.
• Symbols that occur more frequently will have shorter Huffman codes
than symbols that occur less frequently.
• The average code length for an information source S is strictly less
than η + 1. Combined with Eq. (7.5), we have:
l < η +1 (7.6)

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Extended Huffman Coding

• Motivation: All codewords in Huffman coding have integer bit
lengths. It is wasteful when pi is very large and hence log 1 is
2 pi
close to 0.
• Why not group several symbols together and assign a single
codeword to the group as a whole?
• Extended Alphabet: For alphabet S = {s1, s2, . . . , sn}, if k
symbols are grouped together, then the extended alphabet
is:

— the size of the new alphabet S(k) is nk.

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Extended Huffman Coding (Cont’d)

• It can be proven that the average # of bits for
each symbol is:
η ≤ l <η + 1 (7.7)
k

An improvement over the original Huffman coding,

but not much.

• Problem: If k is relatively large (e.g., k ≥ 3), then

for most practical applications where n ≫ 1, nk
implies a huge symbol table — impractical.

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Fig. 7.6: Huffman Tree for Extended Alphabet

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7.4.3 Adaptive Huffman Coding

• Adaptive Huffman Coding: statistics are gathered and
updated dynamically as the data stream arrives.

ENCODER DECODER
------- -------
Initial_code(); Initial_code();

while not EOF while not EOF

{ {
get(c); decode(c);
encode(c); output(c);
update_tree(c); update_tree(c);
} }

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Adaptive Huffman Coding (Cont’d)

• Initial_code assigns symbols with some initially agreed upon
codes, without any prior knowledge of the frequency counts.

• update_tree constructs an Adaptive Huffman tree.

It basically does two things:
a) increments the frequency counts for the symbols (including
any new ones).
b) updates the configuration of the tree.

• The encoder and decoder must use exactly the same

initial_code and update_tree routines.

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Notes on Adaptive Huffman Tree Updating

• Nodes are numbered in order from left to right, bottom to
top. The numbers in parentheses indicates the count.
• The tree must always maintain its sibling property, i.e., all
nodes (internal and leaf) are arranged in the order of
increasing counts.
If the sibling property is about to be violated, a swap
procedure is invoked to update the tree by rearranging the
nodes.
• When a swap is necessary, the farthest node with count N is
swapped with the node whose count has just been increased
to N +1.

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Fig. 7.7: Node Swapping for Updating an Adaptive Huffman Tree

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Another Example: Adaptive Huffman Coding

• This is to clearly illustrate more implementation

details. We show exactly what bits are sent, as
opposed to simply stating how the tree is updated.

• An additional rule: if any character/symbol is to be

sent the first time, it must be preceded by a special
symbol, NEW. The initial code for NEW is 0. The count
for NEW is always kept as 0 (the count is never
increased); hence it is always denoted as NEW:(0) in
Fig. 7.7.

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Table 7.3: Initial code assignment for AADCCDD using

Adaptive Huffman Coding.

Initial Code
---------------------
NEW: 0
A: 00001
B: 00010
C: 00011
D: 00100
.
.
.

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Fig. 7.8: Adaptive Huffman tree for AADCCDD.

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Fig. 7.8 (Cont’d): Adaptive Huffman tree for AADCCDD.

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Table 7.4: Sequence of symbols and codes sent to the decoder

Symbol NEW A A NEW D NEW C C D D

Code 0 00001 1 0 00100 00 00011 001 101 101

• It is important to emphasize that the code for a

particular symbol changes during the adaptive Huffman
coding process.

For example, after AADCCDD, when the character D

overtakes A as the most frequent symbol, its code
changes from 101 to 0.

• The “Squeeze Page” on this book’s web site provides a

Java applet for adaptive Huffman coding.

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7.5 Dictionary-based Coding

• LZW uses fixed-length codewords to represent
variable-length strings of symbols/characters that
commonly occur together, e.g., words in English
text.

• The LZW encoder and decoder build up the same

dictionary dynamically while receiving the data.

• LZW places longer and longer repeated entries into a

dictionary, and then emits the code for an element,
rather than the string itself, if the element has
already been placed in the dictionary.

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ALGORITHM 7.2 - LZW Compression

BEGIN
s = next input character;
while not EOF
{
c = next input character;

if s + c exists in the dictionary

s = s + c;
else
{
output the code for s;
add string s + c to the dictionary with a new code;
s = c;
}
}
output the code for s;
END

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Example 7.2 LZW compression for string

“ABABBABCABABBA”

• Let’s start with a very simple dictionary (also referred to as

a “string table”), initially containing only 3 characters,
with codes as follows:

Code String
1 A
2 B
3 C

• Now if the input string is “ABABBABCABABBA”, the LZW

compression algorithm works as follows:

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S C Output Code String

1 A
2 B
3 C
A B 1 4 AB
B A 2 5 BA
A B
AB B 4 6 ABB
B A
BA B 5 7 BAB
B C 2 8 BC
C A 3 9 CA
A B
AB A 4 10 ABA
A B
AB B
ABB A 6 11 ABBA
A EOF 1

• The output codes are: 1 2 4 5 2 3 4 6 1. Instead of sending 14 characters,

only 9 codes need to be sent (compression ratio = 14/9 = 1.56).

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ALGORITHM 7.3 LZW Decompression (simple version)

BEGIN
s = NIL;
while not EOF
{
k = next input code;
entry = dictionary entry for k;
output entry;
if (s != NIL)
add string s + entry[0] to dictionary with a new code;
s = entry;
}
END

Example 7.3: LZW decompression for string “ABABBABCABABBA”.

Input codes to the decoder are 1 2 4 5 2 3 4 6 1.
The initial string table is identical to what is used by the encoder.

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• The LZW decompression algorithm then works as follows:

S K Entry/output Code String

1 A
2 B
3 C
NIL 1 A
A 2 B 4 AB
B 4 AB 5 BA
AB 5 BA 6 ABB
BA 2 B 7 BAB
B 3 C 8 BC
C 4 AB 9 CA
AB 6 ABB 10 ABA
ABB 1 A 11 ABBA
A EOF

Apparently, the output string is “ABABBABCABABBA”, a truly lossless result!

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ALGORITHM 7.4 LZW Decompression (modified)

BEGIN
s = NIL;
while not EOF
{
k = next input code;
entry = dictionary entry for k;

/* exception handler */
if (entry == NULL)
entry = s + s[0];

output entry;
if (s != NIL)
add string s + entry[0] to dictionary with a new code;
s = entry;
}
END

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LZW Coding (Cont’d)

• In real applications, the code length l is kept in the

range of [l0, lmax]. The dictionary initially has a size of
2l0. When it is filled up, the code length will be
increased by 1; this is allowed to repeat until l = lmax.

• When lmax is reached and the dictionary is filled up, it

needs to be flushed (as in Unix compress, or to have
the LRU (least recently used) entries removed.

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7.6 Arithmetic Coding

• Arithmetic coding is a more modern coding method that
usually out-performs Huffman coding.
• Huffman coding assigns each symbol a codeword which
has an integral bit length. Arithmetic coding can treat
the whole message as one unit.
• A message is represented by a half-open interval [a, b)
where a and b are real numbers between 0 and 1.
Initially, the interval is [0, 1). When the message
becomes longer, the length of the interval shortens and
the number of bits needed to represent the interval
increases.

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ALGORITHM 7.5 Arithmetic Coding Encoder

BEGIN
low = 0.0; high = 1.0; range = 1.0;

while (symbol != terminator)

{
get (symbol);
high = low + range * Range_high(symbol);
low = low + range * Range_low(symbol);
range = high - low;
}

output a code so that low <= code < high;

END
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Example: Encoding in Arithmetic Coding

Symbol Probability Range

A 0.2 [0, 0.2)
B 0.1 [0.2, 0.3)
C 0.2 [0.3, 0.5)
D 0.05 [0.5, 0.55)
E 0.3 [0.55, 0.85)
F 0.05 [0.85, 0.9)
$ 0.1 [0.9, 1.0)

(a) Probability distribution of symbols.

Fig. 7.9: Arithmetic Coding: Encode Symbols “CAEE$”

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Fig. 7.9(b): Graphical display of shrinking ranges.

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Example: Encoding in Arithmetic Coding

Symbol Low High Range
0 1.0 1.0
C 0.3 0.5 0.2
A 0.30 0.34 0.04
E 0.322 0.334 0.012
E 0.3286 0.3322 0.0036
$ 0.33184 0.33220 0.00036

(c) New low, high, and range generated.

Fig. 7.9 (Cont’d): Arithmetic Coding: Encode

Symbols “CAEE$”

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PROCEDURE 7.2 Generating Codeword for Encoder

BEGIN
code = 0;
k = 1;
while (value(code) < low)
{
assign 1 to the kth binary fraction bit
if (value(code) > high)
replace the kth bit by 0
k = k + 1;
}
END

• The final step in Arithmetic encoding calls for the generation of a

number that falls within the range [low, high). The above algorithm
will ensure that the shortest binary codeword is found.

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ALGORITHM 7.6 Arithmetic Coding Decoder

BEGIN
get binary code and convert to
decimal value = value(code);
DO
{
find a symbol s so that
Range_low(s) <= value < Range_high(s);
output s;
low = Rang_low(s);
high = Range_high(s);
range = high - low;
value = [value - low] / range;
}
UNTIL symbol s is a terminator
END

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Table 7.5: Arithmetic coding: decode symbols “CAEE$”

Value Output Range_low Range_high range

Symbol
0.33203125 C 0.3 0.5 0.2
0.16015625 A 0.0 0.2 0.2
0.80078125 E 0.55 0.85 0.3
0.8359375 E 0.55 0.85 0.3
0.953125 $ 0.9 1.0 0.1

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7.6.2 Scaling and Incremental Coding

• The basic algorithm described in the last section has
the following limitations that make its practical
implementation infeasible.
• When it is used to code long sequences of symbols,
the tag intervals shrink to a very small range.
Representing these small intervals requires very high-
precision numbers.
• The encoder will not produce any output codeword
until the entire sequence is entered. Likewise, the
decoder needs to have the codeword for the entire
sequence of the input symbols before decoding.

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Some key observations:

1. Although the binary representations for the low,

high, and any number within the small interval
usually require many bits, they always have the
same MSBs (Most Significant Bits). For example,
0.1000110 for 0.5469 (low), 0.1000111 for 0.5547
(high).

2. Subsequent intervals will always stay within the

current interval. Hence, we can output the common
MSBs and remove them from subsequent
considerations.

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Fig. 7.10: Scaling in arithmetic coding.

(a) E1 Scaling, (b) E2 Scaling, (c) E3 Scaling.

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Procedure 7.3: (E1 and E2 Scalings in Arithmetic

Coding).
BEGIN
while (high <= 0.5) OR (low >= 0.5)
{ if (high <= 0.5) // E1 scaling
{ output ‘0’;
low = 2 * low; high = 2 * high;
}
else // E2 scaling
{ output ‘1’;
low = 2 * (low - 0.5); high = 2 * (high - 0.5);
}
}
END

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Example 7.4: (Arithmetic Coding with Scaling

and Incremental Coding).

• Assume we only have three symbols A, B,

C, and their probabilities are: A: 0.7, B:
0.2, C: 0.1. Suppose the input sequence
for this example is ACB, and both the
encoder and decoder know that the length
of the sequence is 3.

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Fig. 7.11: Example: arithmetic coding with scaling

and incremental coding—encoder

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Fig. 7.12: Example: arithmetic coding with scaling

and incremental coding—decoder

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E3 Scaling
• N E3 scaling steps followed by an E1 is equivalent to
an E1 followed by N E2 steps.
• N E3 scaling steps followed by an E2 is equivalent to
an E2 followed by N E1 steps.

Therefore, a good way to handle the signaling of the

E3 scaling is: postpone until there is an E1 or E2.
• If there is an E1 after N E3 operations, send ‘0’
followed by N ‘1’s after the E1;
• if there is an E2 after N E3 operations, send ‘1’
followed by N ‘0’s after the E2.

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7.6.3 Integer Implementation

• Uses only integer arithmetic. It is quite common in
modern multimedia applications.
• Basically, the unit interval is replaced by a range
[0, N), where N is an integer, e.g. 255.
• Because the integer range could be so small, e.g.,
[0, 255), applying the scaling techniques similar to
what was discussed above, now in integer
arithmetic, is a necessity.
• The main motivation is to avoid any floating
number operations.

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7.6.4 Binary Arithmetic Coding

• Only use binary symbols, 0 and 1.
• The calculation of new intervals and the decision
of which interval to take (first or second) are
simpler.
• Fast Binary Arithmetic Coding (Q-coder, MQ-coder)
was developed in multimedia standards such as
JBIG, JBIG2, and JPEG-2000. The more advanced
version, Context-Adaptive Binary Arithmetic
Coding (CABAC) is used in H.264 (M-coder) and
H.265.

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Fig. 7.13: Binary arithmetic coding

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Procedure 7.4 (Procedures for Adaptive Arithmetic

Coding).

ENCODER DECODER
------- -------
Initialization (reset counters) Initialization (reset counters)
while (symbol != terminator) while (symbol != terminator)
{ {
get(symbol); decode(symbol);
encode(symbol); output(symbol);
update stats and interval; update stats and interval;
} }

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Example 7.5: (Adaptive Binary Arithmetic

Coding).

• Assume the input symbols to the encoder

is 10001.
• Assume that both the encoder and decoder
know the length of the sequence.

** For clarity and simplicity, the scaling

procedure (for E1, E2, etc.) will not be
used.

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Fig. 7.14: Adaptive binary arithmetic coding—

encoder [input symbols:10001]
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Fig. 7.15: Adaptive binary arithmetic coding—

decoder. [input: 0.546875 (binary 0.100011)]
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7.7 Lossless Image Compression

• Approaches of Differential Coding of Images:

– Given an original image I(x, y), using a simple difference operator we

can define a difference image d(x, y) as follows:

d(x, y) = I(x, y) - I(x - 1, y) (7.9)

or use the discrete version of the 2-D Laplacian operator to define a

difference image d(x, y) as
d(x, y) = 4 I(x, y) - I(x, y - 1 ) - I(x, y + 1 ) - I(x + 1, y) - I(x - 1, y) (7.10)

• Due to spatial redundancy existed in normal images I, the

difference image d will have a narrower histogram and hence a
smaller entropy, as shown in Fig. 7.9.

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Fig. 7.16: Distributions for Original versus Derivative Images. (a,b): Original gray-
level image and its partial derivative image; (c,d): Histograms for original and
derivative images.

(This figure uses a commonly employed image called “Barb”.)

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7.7.2 Lossless JPEG

• Lossless JPEG: A special case of the JPEG image compression.

• The Predictive method

1. Forming a differential prediction: A predictor combines
the values of up to three neighboring pixels as the
predicted value for the current pixel, indicated by ‘X’ in
Fig. 7.10. The predictor can use any one of the seven
schemes listed in Table 7.6.

2. Encoding: The encoder compares the prediction with the

actual pixel value at the position ‘X’ and encodes the
difference using one of the lossless compression techniques
we have discussed, e.g., the Huffman coding scheme.

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Fig. 7.17: Neighboring Pixels for Predictors in Lossless JPEG.

• Note: Any of A, B, or C has already been decoded before it is

used in the predictor, on the decoder side of an encode-
decode cycle.

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Table 7.6: Predictors for Lossless JPEG

Predictor Prediction
P1 A
P2 B
P3 C
P4 A+B–C
P5 A + (B – C) / 2
P6 B + (A – C) / 2
P7 (A + B) / 2

67 Li, Drew, & Liu © Springer 2021

Fundamentals of Multimedia 3rd ed., Chapter 7

Table 7.7: Comparison with other lossless

compression programs

Compression Program Compression Ratio

Lena Football F-18 Flowers
Lossless JPEG 1.45 1.54 2.29 1.26
Optimal Lossless JPEG 1.49 1.67 2.71 1.33
Compress (LZW) 0.86 1.24 2.21 0.87
Gzip (LZ77) 1.08 1.36 3.10 1.05
Gzip -9 (optimal LZ77) 1.08 1.36 3.13 1.05
Pack(Huffman coding) 1.02 1.12 1.19 1.00

68 Li, Drew, & Liu © Springer 2021