LuraWave JPEG2000 images are blurry

I've just started using IrfanView's LuraWave JPEG2000 plugin (at
resolutions beyond 640x480) and have noticed serious blurring
artifacts at the "default" setting of 95.

Using the max setting of "100" the files are huge and it still doesn't
look that impressive. Large sections of images look blended like
smooth water, with certain areas in sharp detail. The only super clean
images I get are in the non-lossy mode of JPEG2000, which makes huge
files. The quality is far worse than standard JPEG (even at "80" or
below).

However, before I registered LuraWave to allow JPEG2000 saves beyond
640x480, the images looked quite good. Are their known bugs with the
full version of LuraWave and/or IrfanView's implementation?

K2

Forget about JPEG2000 and Wavelet technology!
It is a hoax and is inferior compared with standard DCT JPEG!
Go with standard DCT JPEG - it's fine and the best method
currently available!
There will be advances in the future, but *not* in the JPEG2000
or Wavelet direction, but based on the current DCT JPEG standard.

Regards
Guido

In message <>, K2
<> writes
>I've just started using IrfanView's LuraWave JPEG2000 plugin (at
>resolutions beyond 640x480) and have noticed serious blurring
>artifacts at the "default" setting of 95.

Heaven knows what their setting "95" actually means, but there is
something seriously wrong with the codec if you can see any visible
artifacts on a J2k file that was saved at highest quality.
>
>Using the max setting of "100" the files are huge and it still doesn't
>look that impressive. Large sections of images look blended like
>smooth water, with certain areas in sharp detail.

That is odd. Using the (experimental) release of Jasper I found that for
some digicam images the wavelet representation of a raw image was almost
exact. Sharp edge pixels were different but not very many.

>files. The quality is far worse than standard JPEG (even at "80" or
>below).

There is something wrong then. My experience with Jasper was that J2k
achieved the same quality as JPEG in about 70% of the file size.

Some of the compression improvement being due to it using arithmetic
coding (when does that patent expire?).
>
>However, before I registered LuraWave to allow JPEG2000 saves beyond
>640x480, the images looked quite good. Are their known bugs with the
>full version of LuraWave and/or IrfanView's implementation?

I don't know. You could try running the original files through the
(rather tedious) command line interface for Jasper to see how they
compare.

It could be that you have found a pathological case where J2k performs
badly, but on balance I think it more likely you have run into a bug.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

Is this really the case ? Could somebody provide (scientific) evidence to
argue this one way or the other ? I'm interested both in a comparison
between JPEG Baseline and the JPEG2000 standard as well as sinusoidal
transforms vs. wavelets in general. Guido, can you justify you statement
that wavelets will not form the basis of future compression techniques ?

Rahul

"Guido Vollbeding" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Forget about JPEG2000 and Wavelet technology!
> It is a hoax and is inferior compared with standard DCT JPEG!
> Go with standard DCT JPEG - it's fine and the best method
> currently available!
> There will be advances in the future, but *not* in the JPEG2000
> or Wavelet direction, but based on the current DCT JPEG standard.
>
> Regards
> Guido

This day of Wed, 9 Jun 2004 00:02:15 +0100, "Rahul Vohra" <>
proclaimed:

>Is this really the case ? Could somebody provide (scientific) evidence to
>argue this one way or the other ? I'm interested both in a comparison
>between JPEG Baseline and the JPEG2000 standard as well as sinusoidal
>transforms vs. wavelets in general. Guido, can you justify you statement
>that wavelets will not form the basis of future compression techniques ?
>
>Rahul


According to what I've heard the biggest problem is simply that the JPEG2000
standard is not being adopted very widely and is therefore effectively useless,
no matter how good it may or may not be. To start using it on the web for
instance would require that the browsers you target support it, etc.

-dhaley


--
~david-haley

"Rahul Vohra" <> wrote in message
news:ca5ghu$ro8$...
> Is this really the case ? Could somebody provide (scientific) evidence
to
> argue this one way or the other ? I'm interested both in a comparison
> between JPEG Baseline and the JPEG2000 standard as well as sinusoidal
> transforms vs. wavelets in general. Guido, can you justify you statement
> that wavelets will not form the basis of future compression techniques ?
>
> Rahul
>

Rahul, Guido does have some very fixed opinions, although he has provided
useful software for the original JPEG standard as well. I would also be
interested in some evidence for his statement.

I have been using a wavelet-based lossless transform in a non-JPEG
application for over a year now, and I have no problems with it.

Cheers,
David

Rahul Vohra wrote:
>
> Is this really the case ? Could somebody provide (scientific) evidence to
> argue this one way or the other ? I'm interested both in a comparison
> between JPEG Baseline and the JPEG2000 standard as well as sinusoidal
> transforms vs. wavelets in general. Guido, can you justify you statement
> that wavelets will not form the basis of future compression techniques ?

Many years of experience with JPEG and the fact that I recently discovered
the most important and previously unknown property of the DCT as used in
standard JPEG have convinced me that the DCT is the best basis for image
compression and superior to the Wavelet techniques.

I consider the Wavelet approach as just an academic and commercial artifact
with no practical advantage and several disadvantages.
I find it rather amusing that those "image compression experts" who pursue
the sophisticated and yet unsuccessful Wavelet approach do not even have
a clue about the basic simple DCT property! They have shown to be
unteachable and ignorant.

There *will be* future advances in image compression, but *not* with
Wavelets, but with the common DCT! The potential of the DCT approach
is currently far from being exploited, because until recently nobody
knew the basic DCT property which makes it ideal for image compression,
even the original JPEG authors didn't know about that and therefore
failed to exploit all opportunities!
With this knowledge it will be possible to introduce important
improvements in image compression with only *slight* modifications
of the current JPEG standard! Furthermore, it will be easy to
maintain compatibility with existing JPEG.

BTW, image blur is the basic property of Wavelet techniques, similar
to the obsolete mosaic sensor technique used in digital photography.
Insofar both techniques might well match for people who like blurry
images. If you look at the current digital camera market you must
think that there are lots of them...

Regards
Guido

"Guido Vollbeding" <> wrote in message
news:...
[]
> BTW, image blur is the basic property of Wavelet techniques, similar
> to the obsolete mosaic sensor technique used in digital photography.
> Insofar both techniques might well match for people who like blurry
> images. If you look at the current digital camera market you must
> think that there are lots of them...
>
> Regards
> Guido

Guido, thanks for your feedback - are there any references available
online to support your claims?

I have been using lossless wavelet compresssion in a non-JPEG application,
where there is no blurring of the data.

Cheers,
David

David Haley wrote:
>
> According to what I've heard the biggest problem is simply that the JPEG2000
> standard is not being adopted very widely and is therefore effectively useless,
> no matter how good it may or may not be. To start using it on the web for
> instance would require that the browsers you target support it, etc.

You wouldn't think that people would start adopting something which is
inferior to what you already have, which does not have a useful advantage,
and which does have several disadvantages.
Oh, sorry, I forgot, the advantage of Wavelet is that some people can
make themselves important, and can earn money from credulous people...

Regards
Guido

David J Taylor wrote:
>
> Guido, thanks for your feedback - are there any references available
> online to support your claims?

Many people and I myself experienced the same properties with Wavelets
as described by the original poster. I also remember some web site,
but sorry I'm too lazy to dig it out now.

You can find some of my findings in a paper for the German Color Group:

http://kb-bmts.rz.tu-ilmenau.de/gcg/GCGMAT1.HTM

or with additional material here:

http://jpegclub.org/temp/

> I have been using lossless wavelet compresssion in a non-JPEG application,
> where there is no blurring of the data.

Well, as far as I remember, you are also one of the folks who still
accept the blurry images of current mosaic sensor cameras.
So, as said, this is a good match.
But not for me, because for me the digital images from cameras with
mosaic sensor are too blurry to be acceptable.

Regards
Guido