End-To-End Image Compression using Embedded Zero-Trees of Wavelet Transforms (EZW)

In 1993, J.M Shapiro introduced the Zero-Tree data structure as a way to create embedded image compressions. What this means is that at any point in the encoding or decoding process, we can terminate and return an image, albeit with lower quality, since the most important bits (high level features) are encoded before the least important bits (fine details). This is extremely important in applications such as video streaming. If a user’s connection is poor, then an application can show the user a low-quality video…