History of Data Compression Algorithms

1
History of Data Compression Algorithms

• By Michael Riha

2
Questions to Answer

• How have compression algorithms evolved over
  time?
• What methods do they use to compress and how are
  they interrelated?
• What real-world applications do they have, and
  how have they changed?
• What priority do they place on speed vs.
  compression ratio?
• What effect have software patents had on the
  development of compression algorithms?

3
Sliding Window Algorithms

• LZ77 (Lempel-Ziv 1) 1977
• LZSS (Lempel-Ziv-Storer-Szymanski) 1982
• LZRW (Lempel-Ziv Ross Williams) 1991
• LZJB (Lempel-Ziv Jeff Bonwick) 1998
• LZR (Lempel-Ziv-Renau) ???
• DEFLATE (ZIP, PNG, gzip, etc.) 1993
• DEFLATE64 (Proprietary) 1999
• LZS (Lempel-Ziv-Stac) 1994
• LZX (Used in Microsoft .CAB) 1995
• LZP (Usually a preprocessor) 1995
• LZO (Lempel-Ziv-Oberhumer) 1996
• LZMA (Lempel-Ziv-Markov Chain) 1998

4
Dictionary Algorithms

• LZ78 (Lempel-Ziv 2) 1978
• LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) 1984
• LZMW (Syllable-based LZW) 1985
• LZAP 1988
• LZWL 2006
• bzip2 (Algorithm Amalgam) 1996
• PAQ (Context Mixing) 2002
• PAQ8O (Faster, higher CR) 2007
• Many others
• Statistical LZ
• ROLZ (Reduced Offset LZ)

5
Methods

• Dictionary Compression (ubiquitous)
• Prediction by Partial Matching (PPM, used by
  7-Zip and RAR)
• Context Mixing (Combines multiple statistical
  models)
• Entropy Encoding
• Huffman Coding (Used in DEFLATE, bzip2, SSH,
  etc.)
• Adaptive Huffman Coding (Dynamic scope)
• Shannon-Fano Coding (Suboptimal compared to
  Huffman)
• Arithmetic Range Encoding
• Rice Golomb Coding (FLAC uses Rice, not used
  general purpose)
• Universal Coding (Slower than Huffman, uncommon)
• Run-Length Encoding (AAAAAAABBBBA gt 7A4BA)
• Burrows-Wheeler Transform (Preprocessor for
  Run-length Encoding)

6
Materials

• Google Scholar / SJSU Library Databases
• Regular Google
• Wikipedia links to many detailed
  descriptions/specifications/implementations of
  algorithms
• A few sources, mainly technical papers
• https//secure.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/en/wiki/Dat
  a_Compression/Dictionary_compression
• http//www.maximumcompression.com/algoritms.php
• https//tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1951
• http//www.cbloom.com/papers/lzp.html
• http//www.larsson.dogma.net/dccpaper.pdf
• http//ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/
  CEUR-WS/Vol-176/paper5.pdf
• Have not contacted any project advisors, not sure
  who would have expertise