# GIF compression info on web?



## AdmiralAK (Apr 14, 2002)

Hey guys!
I am writing a mini paper on MPEG, JPEG and GIF compression.  I found most of my info on faqs.org (for mpeg and JPEG) but I can't find much on GIF.

does anyone know of sources on the web where I can find compression info on GIF (how GIF images are compressed, specs, algorythms used and so on)


thanks!

Admiral


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## Nummi_G4 (Apr 14, 2002)

I looked at gif.com I do not think you will get anything from that.  But I think you should take out a book from the library.  I bought the book because it is a lot of help.  and I remember reading a whole chapter on the gif format.  It is from Oreilly (spelling might be wrong).  web design in a nutshell


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## ebolag4 (Apr 15, 2002)

Admiral,

Give http://www.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/ a try.

Specifically: http://www.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/graphics/graphics_file_formats.html.

I've used this quite a bit with my students.


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## putamare (Apr 15, 2002)

You probably won't find much since LZW is patented. 
See Why there are no GIF files on GNU web pages and more incendiary information at BurnAllGIFs.org.


> LZW is used in an obsolete graphic format called GIF, which many web sites use in order to be compatible with old web browsers. Unisys is now demanding that web sites pay them $5000 or more to use these now-obsolete GIF graphics if the software originally used to create the GIFs was not covered by an appropriate Unisys license.


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## AdmiralAK (Apr 15, 2002)

thanks 
I know about the LZW algorithm since it was something we covered in class. I knew that GIFs used the LZW algorithm, but did not know much more.  at least I know a little more in order to write a two apge paper


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## MDLarson (Apr 19, 2002)

I don't know if anybody else knows this or not, or even how accurate this is, but I understood the GIF format to have started out with CompuServe.  That's about it!


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