Details: File format summary

Details for: Lempel-Ziv-Welch


Compression Name	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Withdrawn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
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