[webkit-help] Retina display and JPEG 2000 for internet image delivery

[François Chaplais]

I hope this is the right mailing list for my post, which is a feature request that I will defend in the following.

As you know, Apple has just released a new laptop ("Retina display macbook pro") which has both a significant display size and a very high resolution display. 
It has already mentioned that this is a problem for displaying internet image content, since the full use of such a display would require large image files.
That is, if you stick to the implemented internet image standards.
The subject of this post is my belief that it is time to consider a decade old standard, i.e. JPEG 2000, to send hi-res images across the internet.
I have to precise that I am not a JPEG 2000 expert per se, by I know quite a few things about image compression using wavelets, and that JPEG 2000 is based on that.

Now to the point.
While JPEG 2000 does not outperform JPEG for small or medium sized images, it outperforms JPEG in terms of compression when it comes to large hi-res "natural" images, i.e. photos.
Moreover, it is multiresolution based, so, if the destination output is not a "retina" display, all you have to do is stop the decoding at a resolution that is not maximal (typically, the resolution just before the max).

To sum it up, i believe that today's technology makes JPEG 2000 relevant for delivering internet image content, and it is worthwhile for the webkit developers community to give it a try for incorporating it into the rendering engine. And if this solves the retina internet issue, I assume Apple will be very interested in that.

Very best regards



François Chaplais
MINES ParisTech
Centre Automatique et systèmes
Ecole des Mines de Paris
http://cas.ensmp.fr/~chaplais/en/

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