Customer Reviews

A Concise Introduction to Data Compression (Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science)

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The author doesn't see fit to show the inputs and the outputs of each of the processes.

A terrible example is LZW. We know there is a processed buffer and a look-ahead buffer. We don't know the step-by-step process.

I really really loved this book.

I'm a self-taught programmer, and this book is one of the easiest introductions to the subject. The language is simple, the examples are clear and unhurried, and the important topics are covered. In fact, I understood basic concepts of information theory here for the first time. For example, while everybody else says "the information content of a random variable is \sigma(P_i log(P_i))", this books takes a couple of pages to explain the intuition behind this formula.

For the fact that this is a concise guide, it packs quite a bit of information, from LZW, Huffman, zip, arithmetic coding, wavelets, jpeg and audio compression (just to pick a few). The best way to read this book is to have a calculator handy, and to hand-do the examples from the description of the algorithm _before_ you read the solution.

This is a keeper.