This is nothing less than a totally essential reference for engineers and researchers in any field of work that involves the use of compressed imagery. Beginning with a thorough and up-to-date overview of the fundamentals of image compression, the authors move on to provide a complete description of the JPEG2000 standard. They then devote space to the implementation and exploitation of that standard. The final section describes other key image compression systems. This work has specific applications for those involved in the development of software and hardware solutions for multimedia, internet, and medical imaging applications. Included is a CD-ROM that provides a complete C++ implementation of JPEG2000 Part 1.