A remarkable series of compression algorithms for reducing the amount of data needed to transmit a picture are to be marketed by Iterated Systems Inc, Atlanta, Georgia, reports Newsbytes: the product is called VRIFS for Virtual Recurrent Iterated Function System, runs on Sun Microsystems Inc workstations, and uses a fractal library to compress images, look at pieces of an image for designs that match its equations, then transmit just the equations and locators; it is not exact, but is claimed to yield a tremendous reduction in the number of bytes needed to describe a picture so that a picture made up of 2Mb to 3Mb of data can be reduced to between 400 and 600 bytes, the new company claims, suggesting that when combined with superfast graphics processing chips, the potentiol in graphic arts is unimaginable.
