[PLUG] Anyone else discovered DjVu?

Paul Heinlein heinlein at attbi.com
Thu Nov 7 16:25:41 UTC 2002


On 7 Nov 2002, Karl M. Hegbloom wrote:

> http://www.djvuzone.org/
> 
> Sexy application!  Perhaps it will be interesting to see how hard it
> is to turn LaTeX into DjVu...

I was listening to a conversation about this technology last Monday.  
It seems like a killer document format for scanned archival documents:
DjVu docs of scans are an order of magnitude smaller than PDFs or JPGs
of the same scans.

Here's the relevant FAQ-ish paragraph:

    One of the main technologies behind DjVu is the ability to 
    separate an image into a background layer (i.e., paper texture and
    pictures)  and foreground layer (text and line drawings). 
    Traditional image compression techniques are fine for simple 
    photographs, but they drastically degrade sharp color transitions 
    between adjacent highly contrasted areas - which is why they 
    render type so poorly. By separating the text from the 
    backgrounds, DjVu can keep the text at high resolution (thereby 
    preserving the sharp edges and maximizing legibility), while at 
    the same time compressing the backgrounds and pictures at lower 
    resolution with a wavelet-based compression technique.

--Paul Heinlein <heinlein at attbi.com>





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