Compression Types
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| Lempel-Ziv-Welch |
| Other names |
LZW |
| Identifier(s) |
PUID:
x-cmp/12
|
| Family |
|
| Description |
The Lempel-Ziv-Welch compression algorithm was developed by Terry Welch in 1984, as a modification of the LZ78 compressor. It is a lossless technique which can be applied to almost any type of data, but is most commonly used for image compression. LZW compression is effective on images with colour depths from 1-bit (monochrome) to 24-bit (True Colour). LZW compression is encountered in a range of common graphics file formats, including TIFF and GIF. |
| Lossiness |
Lossless |
| Released |
01 Jan 1984 |
| Withdrawn |
|
| Developed by |
 T A Welch / [No organisation specified]
|
| Supported by |
|
| Documentation |
Welch, T A, 1984, A technique for high performance data compression, IEEE Computer, 17: 6 |
| Rights |
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| Note |
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Details: File format summary
: detailed report on file format 
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