Extremely widely adopted as a platform-independent format for disseminating page-oriented documents. Adobe Reader software for viewing PDF files is freely distributed and bundled with most personal computers. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000030.shtml Adobe supports the format. Specifications available at http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/index_reference.html http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/index_reference.html One subtype of this proprietary format has been adopted as an international standard by ISO (PDF/X). A second is in the standardization process (PDF/A). http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000030.shtml Fully documented. PDF was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated, which makes the specification available openly and at no charge. One subtype of this proprietary format has been adopted as an international standard by ISO (PDF/X). A second is in the standardization process (PDF/A). http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000030.shtml Adobe Acrobat's PDF generation properties inspected. Also supports ZIP compression. "Starting with version 1.4 of the PDF standard, transparency (including translucency) is supported. This is a very complex model, requiring over 100 pages to document. A key source of complication is that PDF files may contain objects with different color spaces, and blending these is tricky. PDF supports many different blend modes, not just the most common averaging method. In addition, the rules for compositing many overlapping objects allow choices, such as whether a group of objects are blended before being blended with the background, or whether each object in turn is blended into the background.Adobe Acrobat 5.0 was the first to support PDF 1.4 and, hence, transparent PDF files. Transparency in PDF was carefully designed not to cause errors in PDF viewers that did not understand it, they would simply display all elements as fully opaque. This was a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it reduced errors and complaints about errors; on the other hand it meant people with older viewers, PDF printers, etc. might print something completely different from the original design, increasing complaints about incorrect output. When PDF files are used to prepare work for professional printing, transparency issues could cause millions of printed copies to be incorrect, and have to be destroyed. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_pixels#Transparency_in_PDF Later versions of PDF can include XMP metadata packages. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000030.shtml To promote the use of PDF for information interchange the following patents are licensed by Adobe on a royalty-free, non-exclusive basis for the term of each patent for developing software that produces, consumes, and interprets PDF files : 5,634,064 (filed 1996-08-02, granted 1997-05-27); 5,737,599 (filed 1995-12-07, granted 1998-04-07); 5,781,785 (filed 1995-09-26, granted 1998-07-14); 5,819,301 (filed 1997-09-09, granted 1998-10-06); 6,028,583 (filed 1998-01-16, granted 2002-02-22); 6,289,364 (filed 1997-12-22, granted 2001-09-11); 6,421,460 (filed 1999-05-06, granted 2002-07-16). Patent 5,860,074 (filed 1997-08-14, granted 1999-01-12) is similarly licensed on a royalty-free, non-exclusive basis for its term but only for the purpose of developing software that produces PDF files (specifically excluding software that consumes and/or interprets PDF files). http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000030.shtml Many open-source parsers and libraries available to both read and write PDF files. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Free_PDF_software "I pity everyone who has to maintain a pdf rendering application. If you follow the specs, your application will not work well in the real world (i.e. with ""legacy documents"" -- fonts are a constant source of trouble). Making it work in the real world is a constant challenge One way of handling ""legacy documents"" would be for Adobe to introduce a system-hook whereby a PDF could be automatically filtered, before it is passed to a viewer. The idea being that the filter translates what it finds into ""compliant PDF,"" whatever that happens to be at the time of viewing. Such filters have been around for a while: pdf/x cum suis > compliance can be tested in acrobat 6 and higher. Unless one messes around with pdfliterals in uncontrolled ways, pdftex output is rather well pdf/x compliant." http://www.tug.org/pipermail/pdftex/2006-March/006447.html Technical specifications, SDKs and open-source software are available. http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/index_reference.html XPS, Envoy, Common Ground Digital Paper, DjVu or PS could be considered competing formats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF#History The PDF format offers several forms of technical protection, including encryption, that would prevent custodians of digital content ensuring accessibility in future technological environments. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000030.shtml PDF is now on its sixth revision. "A weak spot in pdf files can be tricky things with annotations and javascripts and multi-media stuff; such (new) features have always been unstable, subjected to subtle changes, etc. I normally tend to not supporting things like that officially unless proven stable (enough) which often means skipping at least one version (of pdf or the viewer)" http://www.tug.org/pipermail/pdftex/2006-March/006447.html When PDF first came out in the early 1990s, it was slow to catch on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF#History Depends upon algorithms and tools to read; will require sophistication to build tools. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000030.shtml Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading PDF files. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading PDF files. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading PDF files. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading PDF files. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software As of 2006, JPEG 2000 is not widely supported in web browsers, and hence is not generally used on the World Wide Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpeg2000 Support is provided by the JPEG Commitee. http://www.jpeg.org The format is an ISO standard . ISO/IEC 15444-1:2000. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000138.shtml http://www.iso.ch Open standard developed by Joint Technical Committee ISOAEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee SC 29, Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information in collaboration with ITU-T. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000138.shtml Core coding uses a discrete wavelet transform and other elements in a variable manner to produce files with lossy or lossless compression http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000138.shtml Core coding uses a discrete wavelet transform and other elements in a variable manner to produce files with lossy or lossless compression. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000138.shtml The format supports transparency. Experimented with Photoshop. Some parts of the specification support both EXIF and XMP metadata. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000138.shtml JPEG 2000 is not widely supported in present software due to the perceived danger of software patents on the mathematics of the compression method, this area of mathematics being heavily patented in general. JPEG 2000 is by itself not license-free, but the contributing companies and organizations agreed that licenses for its first part – the core coding system – can be obtained free of charge from all contributors. The JPEG committee has stated: It has always been a strong goal of the JPEG committee that its standards should be implementable in their baseline form without payment of royalty and license fees ... The up and coming JPEG 2000 standard has been prepared along these lines, and agreement reached with over 20 large organizations holding many patents in this area to allow use of their intellectual property in connection with the standard without payment of license fees or royalties. [1] However, the JPEG committee has also noted that undeclared and obscure submarine patents may still present a hazard: It is of course still possible that other organizations or individuals may claim intellectual property rights that affect implementation of the standard, and any implementers are urged to carry out their own searches and investigations in this area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG2000 http://www.jpeg.org/faq.phtml?action=show_answer&question_id=q3f042a5e42fd8 Many open-source parsers and libraries available to both read and write JPEG 2000 files. http://jj2000.epfl.ch/ http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams/jasper/ http://www.openjpeg.org/ Q: Does j2k-codec have backward compatibility with the old JPEG files? A: No. JPEG2000 is a revolutionary standard that changed almost everything. To support old JPEG would require writing another bunch of code. This would affect performance, would increase the price and would do nothing to bring about the quicker death of the good old JPEG format. http://j2k-codec.com/faq.html The format specification is fully disclosured and supported by the JPEG committee http://www.jpeg.org There are several formats capable of depicting still images, e.g. TIFF, PNG, GIF, etc. The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) metadata defines metadata to either protect the rights of the owner of the image or provide further information to request permission to use it. It is important for developers and users to understand the implications of intellectual property and copyright information on digital images to properly protect the rights of the owner of the image data. Official documentation: 15444-2annexn.pdf Only the initial release is documented. While it is useful to allow vendors to extend JP2 files by adding information using UUID boxes, it is also useful to provide information in a standard form which can be used by non-extended applications to get more information about the extensions in the file. This information is contained in UUID Info boxes. A JP2 file may contain zero or more UUID Info boxes. These boxes may be found anywhere in the top level of the file (the superbox of a UUID Info box shall be the JP2 file itself) except before the File Type box. This box contains a URL which can use used by an application to acquire more information about the associated vendor-specific extensions. The format of the information acquired through the use of this URL is not defined in this Recommendation | International Standard. The URL type should be of a service which delivers a file (e.g., URLs of type file, http, ftp, etc.), which ideally also permits random access. Relative URLs are permissible and are relative to the file containing this Data Entry URL box. Offical spec: 15444-1annexi.pdf Part of JPEG 2000 has been published as an ISO standard, ISO/IEC 15444-1:2000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG2000 Depends upon algorithms and tools to read; will require sophistication to build tools. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000138.shtml Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG 2000 files. http://j2k-codec.com/ http://www.aware.com/products/compression/jpeg2000.html http://jj2000.epfl.ch/ Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG 2000 files. http://j2k-codec.com/ http://www.aware.com/products/compression/jpeg2000.html http://jj2000.epfl.ch/ Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG 2000 files. http://j2k-codec.com/ http://www.aware.com/products/compression/jpeg2000.html http://jj2000.epfl.ch/ Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading TIFF files. http://j2k-codec.com/ http://www.aware.com/products/compression/jpeg2000.html http://jj2000.epfl.ch/ Particular subtypes are very widely deployed as master formats for scanned images. Not supported by all browsers in native format, but, as of early 2004, new PC configurations tend to include a viewer. Particular TIFF subtypes are preferred data formats in the list of FCLA recommended formats (Florida Center for Library Automation; www.fcla.edu/digitalArchive/pdfs/recFormats.pdf). Library and Archives Canada has also adopted TIFF as a recommended format for still images. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000022.shtml Adobe provides support for this format. http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/tiff/index.html No evidence was found that the format is being supported by a standards agency The format is fully documented. TIFF was developed by the Aldus and Microsoft Corporations, and the specification is owned by Aldus (now absorbed into the Adobe Corporation). The TIFF tag set is extensible through a registry maintained by Adobe; the list of registered extensions is not available from Adobe. However, the most significant are part of other official standards that use TIFF as a basis, e.g. TIFF/IT, TIFF/EP, and Exif. Specification available at http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/tiff/index.htm http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/tiff/index.htm http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000022.shtml The ability to store image data in a lossless format makes TIFF files a useful method for archiving images. Unlike standard JPEG, TIFF files can be edited and resaved without suffering a compression loss. Other TIFF file options include multiple layers or pages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF The ability to store image data in a lossless format makes TIFF files a useful method for archiving images. Unlike standard JPEG, TIFF files can be edited and resaved without suffering a compression loss. Other TIFF file options include multiple layers or pages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF Raster file formats that support transparency include GIF, PNG, and TIFF, through either a transparent color or an alpha channel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_pixels TIFF supports the inclusion of private tags which are basically custom metadata elements. http://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff.html Royalties not exploited for the TIFF wrapper format. The only widely used compression scheme for the embedded image data that has been subject to patent claims in recent years is LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) compression. TIFF has an option to use LZW compression, a loss-free technique of reducing file size, however this technique is covered under several patents in different jurisdictions. As of 2005, all but one of these patents has expired, including the most well-known and controversial patent owned by Unisys. The single outstanding patent will expire on August 11, 2006 and is owned by IBM, who has shown no interest to date in enforcing it. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000022.shtml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF Many open-source parsers and libraries available to both read and write TIFF files. http://freeimage.sourceforge.net/download.html Since TIFF images conforming to earlier versions are valid TIFF 6.0 files, the information in this description is also pertinent to earlier versions of the TIFF standard. Many TIFF files with uncompressed image data are still being created as TIFF 5.0 files. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000022.shtml There is widely available documentation on the format. http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/tiff/index.html http://www.remotesensing.org/libtiff/ http://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff.html http://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff/bigtiff.html http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000022.shtml http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/tiff/TIFF6.pdf There are several formats capable of depicting still images, e.g. TIFF, PNG, GIF, etc. No evidence was found that the format supports DRM features. Current version is revision 6. Private TIFF tags are, at least originally, allocated by Adobe for organizations that wish to store information meaningful only to that organization in a TIFF file. The private tags listed here are the ones that found their way into the public domain and more general applications, and the ones that the owning organizations documented for the benefit of the TIFF community. http://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff/tifftags/private.html TIFF was originally created as an attempt to get desktop scanner vendors of the mid-1980's to agree on a common scanned image file format, rather than have each company promulgate its own proprietary format. In the beginning, TIFF was only a bilevel image format, since that was all that desktop scanners could handle. As scanners became more powerful, and as desktop computer disk space became more plentiful, TIFF grew to accommodate grayscale images, then color images. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF Depends on bitstream encoding. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000022.shtml Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading TIFF files. http://home.earthlink.net/~ritter/tiff/#public Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading TIFF files. http://home.earthlink.net/~ritter/tiff/#public Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading TIFF files. http://home.earthlink.net/~ritter/tiff/#public Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading TIFF files. http://home.earthlink.net/~ritter/tiff/#public Very widely adopted, reportedly surpassing the use of either "raw" JPEG bitstreams or the SPIFF file format specified in ISO/IEC 10918, part 3. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000018.shtml The JPEG commitee provides information and support on the format. http://www.jpeg.org The format is a ISO standard - ISO/IEC 10918-1:1994. http://www.iso.ch "The file format was created originally by Eric Hamilton, the then convenor of JPEG as part of his work at C-Cube Microsystems, and was placed by them into the public domain under the name JFIF (available here in the latest version, 1.02)." Specification available at http://www.jpeg.org/public/jfif.pdf. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000018.shtml http://www.jpeg.org/public/jfif.pdf In computing, JPEG (pronounced JAY-peg) is a commonly used standard method of lossy compression for photographic images. The file format which employs this compression is commonly also called JPEG; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpeg JPEG is "lossy," meaning that the decompressed image isn't quite the same as the one you started with. (There are lossless image compression algorithms, but JPEG achieves much greater compression than is possible with lossless methods.) JPEG is designed to exploit known limitations of the human eye, notably the fact that small color changes are perceived less accurately than small changes in brightness. Thus, JPEG is intended for compressing images that will be looked at by humans. If you plan to machine-analyze your images, the small errors introduced by JPEG may be a problem for you, even if they are invisible to the eye. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/ JPEG does not support transparency and is not likely to do so any time soon. It turns out that adding transparency to JPEG would not be a simple task; read on if you want the gory details. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/ Free-text comment field. http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/presentation/table7-1.html In 2002 Forgent Networks asserted that it owns and will enforce patent rights on the JPEG technology, arising from a patent that had been filed in 1986 (U.S. Patent 4,698,672). The announcement has created a furor reminiscent of Unisys' attempts to assert its rights over the GIF image compression standard. The JPEG committee investigated the patent claims in 2002 and are of the opinion that they were invalidated by prior art. [1] Others have also concluded that Forgent doesn't have a patent that covers JPEG. [2] Nevertheless, between 2002 and 2004 Forgent was able to obtain about $90 million by licensing their patent to some 30 companies. In April 2004 Forgent sued 31 other companies to enforce further license payments. In July of the same year, a consortium of 21 large computer companies filed a countersuit, with the goal of invalidating the patent. Surprisingly, in contrast to the other major computer companies such as Sony and Philips, Microsoft has launched a major lawsuit against Forgent. In February 2006, the United States Patent and Trademark Office agreed to re-examine Forgent's JPEG patent at the request of the Public Patent Foundation (Published news article). On May 26, 2006 the USPTO found the patent invalid based on prior art. The USPTO also found that Forgent knew about the prior art, and didn't tell the Patent Office, making any appeal to reinstate the patent highly unlikely to succeed. (Groklaw article) Forgent also possesses a similar patent granted by the European Patent Office in 1994, though it is unclear how enforceable it is.[3] The JPEG committee has as one of its explicit goals that their standards (in particular their baseline methods) be implementable without payment of license fees, and they have secured appropriate license rights for their upcoming JPEG 2000 standard from over 20 large organizations. http://www.jpeg.org/faq.phtml?action=show_answer&question_id=q3f042a5e42fd8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFIF#Potential_patent_issues The IJG code includes a reusable JPEG compression/decompression library, plus sample applications "cjpeg" and "djpeg", which perform conversion between JPEG JFIF format and image files in PPM/PGM (PBMPLUS), BMP, Utah RLE, and Targa formats. A third application "jpegtran" provides lossless transcoding between different JPEG formats --- for example, it can convert a baseline JPEG file to an equivalent progressive JPEG file. jpegtran can also do lossless rotation and flipping of JPEG files. Two small applications "wrjpgcom" and "rdjpgcom" insert and extract textual comments in JFIF files. The package is highly portable; it has been used successfully on many machines ranging from Apple IIs to Crays. The IJG code is free for both noncommercial and commercial use; only an acknowledgement in your documentation is required to use it in a product. (See the README file in the distribution for details.) The IJG code has recently been translated into Pascal --- see ftp.simtel.net:/pub/simtelnet/msdos/turbopas/pasjpg10.zip. This version has been tested under Turbo Pascal and Delphi, and it should be portable to compatible Pascal compilers. A different free JPEG implementation, written by the PVRG group at Stanford, is available from havefun.stanford.edu:/pub/jpeg/JPEGv1.2.1.tar.Z. The PVRG code is designed for research and experimentation rather than production use; it is slower, harder to use, and less portable than the IJG code, but the PVRG code is easier to understand. Also, the PVRG code supports (the original form of) lossless JPEG, while the IJG code does not. But PVRG does not support progressive JPEG. There's also a lossless-JPEG-only implementation available from Cornell, ftp.cs.cornell.edu:/pub/multimed/ljpg.tar.Z. Caution: the Cornell coder is known to have bugs for 16-bit data. Neither the PVRG nor Cornell codecs are being actively maintained, but the IJG code is. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/ No evidence was found that the format was not backward compatible. There is widely available documentation on the format. http://www.jpeg.org http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/ http://www.wotsit.org/search.asp?page=5&s=graphics http://www.w3.org/Graphics/JPEG/itu-t81.pdf http://www.w3.org/Graphics/JPEG/jfif3.pdf http://www.compression-links.info/JPEG There are several formats capable of depicting still images, e.g. TIFF, PNG, GIF, etc. No evidence was found that the format supports DRM features. The format has suffered two updates since its first appearence. It is currently on version 1.02 http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/presentation/table7-1.html No evidence was found that the format supports custom extensions. The name JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the name of the joint ISO/CCITT committee which created the standard. The group was organized in 1986, issuing a standard in 1992 which was approved in 1994 as ISO 10918-1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFIF The format is considered to be easy to read. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000018.shtml Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG files. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/ Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG files. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/ Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG files. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/ Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG files. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/ Very widely adopted, reportedly surpassing the use of either "raw" JPEG bitstreams or the SPIFF file format specified in ISO/IEC 10918, part 3. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000018.shtml The JPEG commitee provides information and support on the format. http://www.jpeg.org The format is a ISO standard - ISO/IEC 10918-1:1994. http://www.iso.ch "The file format was created originally by Eric Hamilton, the then convenor of JPEG as part of his work at C-Cube Microsystems, and was placed by them into the public domain under the name JFIF (available here in the latest version, 1.02)." Specification available at http://www.jpeg.org/public/jfif.pdf. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000018.shtml http://www.jpeg.org/public/jfif.pdf In computing, JPEG (pronounced JAY-peg) is a commonly used standard method of lossy compression for photographic images. The file format which employs this compression is commonly also called JPEG; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpeg JPEG is "lossy," meaning that the decompressed image isn't quite the same as the one you started with. (There are lossless image compression algorithms, but JPEG achieves much greater compression than is possible with lossless methods.) JPEG is designed to exploit known limitations of the human eye, notably the fact that small color changes are perceived less accurately than small changes in brightness. Thus, JPEG is intended for compressing images that will be looked at by humans. If you plan to machine-analyze your images, the small errors introduced by JPEG may be a problem for you, even if they are invisible to the eye. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/ JPEG does not support transparency and is not likely to do so any time soon. It turns out that adding transparency to JPEG would not be a simple task; read on if you want the gory details. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/ Free-text comment field. http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/presentation/table7-1.html In 2002 Forgent Networks asserted that it owns and will enforce patent rights on the JPEG technology, arising from a patent that had been filed in 1986 (U.S. Patent 4,698,672). The announcement has created a furor reminiscent of Unisys' attempts to assert its rights over the GIF image compression standard. The JPEG committee investigated the patent claims in 2002 and are of the opinion that they were invalidated by prior art. [1] Others have also concluded that Forgent doesn't have a patent that covers JPEG. [2] Nevertheless, between 2002 and 2004 Forgent was able to obtain about $90 million by licensing their patent to some 30 companies. In April 2004 Forgent sued 31 other companies to enforce further license payments. In July of the same year, a consortium of 21 large computer companies filed a countersuit, with the goal of invalidating the patent. Surprisingly, in contrast to the other major computer companies such as Sony and Philips, Microsoft has launched a major lawsuit against Forgent. In February 2006, the United States Patent and Trademark Office agreed to re-examine Forgent's JPEG patent at the request of the Public Patent Foundation (Published news article). On May 26, 2006 the USPTO found the patent invalid based on prior art. The USPTO also found that Forgent knew about the prior art, and didn't tell the Patent Office, making any appeal to reinstate the patent highly unlikely to succeed. (Groklaw article) Forgent also possesses a similar patent granted by the European Patent Office in 1994, though it is unclear how enforceable it is.[3] The JPEG committee has as one of its explicit goals that their standards (in particular their baseline methods) be implementable without payment of license fees, and they have secured appropriate license rights for their upcoming JPEG 2000 standard from over 20 large organizations. http://www.jpeg.org/faq.phtml?action=show_answer&question_id=q3f042a5e42fd8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFIF#Potential_patent_issues The IJG code includes a reusable JPEG compression/decompression library, plus sample applications "cjpeg" and "djpeg", which perform conversion between JPEG JFIF format and image files in PPM/PGM (PBMPLUS), BMP, Utah RLE, and Targa formats. A third application "jpegtran" provides lossless transcoding between different JPEG formats --- for example, it can convert a baseline JPEG file to an equivalent progressive JPEG file. jpegtran can also do lossless rotation and flipping of JPEG files. Two small applications "wrjpgcom" and "rdjpgcom" insert and extract textual comments in JFIF files. The package is highly portable; it has been used successfully on many machines ranging from Apple IIs to Crays. The IJG code is free for both noncommercial and commercial use; only an acknowledgement in your documentation is required to use it in a product. (See the README file in the distribution for details.) The IJG code has recently been translated into Pascal --- see ftp.simtel.net:/pub/simtelnet/msdos/turbopas/pasjpg10.zip. This version has been tested under Turbo Pascal and Delphi, and it should be portable to compatible Pascal compilers. A different free JPEG implementation, written by the PVRG group at Stanford, is available from havefun.stanford.edu:/pub/jpeg/JPEGv1.2.1.tar.Z. The PVRG code is designed for research and experimentation rather than production use; it is slower, harder to use, and less portable than the IJG code, but the PVRG code is easier to understand. Also, the PVRG code supports (the original form of) lossless JPEG, while the IJG code does not. But PVRG does not support progressive JPEG. There's also a lossless-JPEG-only implementation available from Cornell, ftp.cs.cornell.edu:/pub/multimed/ljpg.tar.Z. Caution: the Cornell coder is known to have bugs for 16-bit data. Neither the PVRG nor Cornell codecs are being actively maintained, but the IJG code is. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/ No evidence was found that the format was not backward compatible. There is widely available documentation on the format. http://www.jpeg.org http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/ http://www.wotsit.org/search.asp?page=5&s=graphics http://www.w3.org/Graphics/JPEG/itu-t81.pdf http://www.w3.org/Graphics/JPEG/jfif3.pdf http://www.compression-links.info/JPEG There are several formats capable of depicting still images, e.g. TIFF, PNG, GIF, etc. No evidence was found that the format supports DRM features. The format has suffered two updates up to its 1.01 version. http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/presentation/table7-1.html No evidence was found that the format supports custom extensions. The name JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the name of the joint ISO/CCITT committee which created the standard. The group was organized in 1986, issuing a standard in 1992 which was approved in 1994 as ISO 10918-1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFIF The format is considered to be easy to read. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000018.shtml Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG files. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/ Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG files. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/ Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG files. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/ Several applications for difference operating systems are capable of producing and reading JPEG files. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/