IT-101

Section 001

Introduction to Information
Technology
Lecture #6
Overview

Chapter 7: Compression
 Introduction
 Entropy
 Huffman coding
 Universal coding
 Introduction
World Wide Web not World Wide Wait
 Compression techniques can significantly reduce the bandwidth and
memory required for sending, receiving, and storing data.
 Most computers are equipped with modems that compress or
decompress all information leaving or entering via the phone line.
 With a mutually recognized system (e.g. WinZip) the amount of data
can be significantly diminished.
 Examples of compression techniques:
 Compressing BINARY DATA STREAMS
 Variable length coding (e.g. Huffman coding)

 Universal Coding (e.g. WinZip)

 IMAGE-SPECIFIC COMPRESSION (will will see that images are well

suited for compression)
 GIF and JPEG

 VIDEO COMPRESSION
 MPEG
 Why can we compress information?

 Compression is possible because information usually contains

redundancies, or information that is often repeated.
 For example, two still images from a video sequence of

images are often similar. This fact can be exploited by

transmitting only the changes from one image to the next.
 For example, a line of data often contains redundancies:

“Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”

 File compression programs remove this redundancy.

 Some characters occur more frequently than others.
 It’s possible to represent frequently occurring characters with a
smaller number of bits during transmission.
 This may be accomplished by a variable length code, as
opposed to a fixed length code like ASCII.
 An example of a simple variable length code is Morse Code.
 “E” occurs more frequently than “Z” so we represent “E”

with a shorter length code:

.=E -=T --..=Z --.-=Q
Information Theory

 Variable length coding exploits the fact that some

information occurs more frequently than others.
 The mathematical theory behind this concept is
known as: INFORMATION THEORY
 Claude E. Shannon developed modern Information

Theory at Bell Labs in 1948.

 He saw the relationship between the probability of

appearance of a transmitted signal and its

information content.
 This realization enabled the development of

compression techniques.
 A Little Probability

 Shannon (and others) found that information can be related to probability.

 An event has a probability of 1 (or 100%) if we believe this event will occur.
 An event has a probability of 0 (or 0%) if we believe this event will not occur.
 The probability that an event will occur takes on values anywhere from 0 to 1.
 Consider a coin toss: heads or tails each has a probability of .50
 In two tosses, the probability of tossing two heads is:
 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4 or .25

 In three tosses, the probability of tossing all tails is:

 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/8 or .125

 We compute probability this way because the result of each toss is

independent of the results of other tosses.
 Entropy
 If the probability of a
binary event is .5 (like a
coin), then, on average,
you need one bit to
represent the result of
this event.
 As the probability of a
binary event increases or
decreases, the number of As part of
bits you need, on
average, to represent the information theory,
result decreases Bits Shannon developed the
 The figure is expressing concept of ENTROPY
that unless an event is
totally random, you can
convey the information of
the event in fewer bits, on
average, than it might
first appear Probability of an event
 Let’s do an example...
 Example from text..
A MEN’S SPECIALTY STORE

 The probability of male patrons is .8

 The probability of female patrons is .2

 Assume for this example, groups of two enter the store.

Calculate the probabilities of different pairings:
 Event A, Male-Male. P(MM) = .8 x .8 = .64
 Event B, Male-Female. P(MF) = .8 x .2 = .16

 Event C, Female-Male. P(FM) = .2 x .8 = .16

 Event D, Female-Female. P(FF) = .2 x .2 = .04

 We could assign the longest codes to the most infrequent

events while maintaining unique decodability.
 Example (cont..)
 Let’s assign a unique string of bits to each event based on the
probability of that event occurring.

 Event Name Code

A Male-Male 0
B Male-Female 10
C Female-Male 110
D Female-Female 111

 Given a received code of: 01010110100, determine the events:

A B B C B A
MM MF MF FM MF MM

 The above example has used a variable length code.

Variable Length Coding
Takes advantage of the probabilistic nature of information.
 Unlike fixed length codes like ASCII, variable length codes:
 Assign the longest codes to the most infrequent events.

 Assign the shortest codes to the most frequent events.

 Each code word must be uniquely identifiable regardless of

length.
 Examples of Variable Length Coding
 Morse Code

 Huffman Coding

If we have total uncertainty about the information

we are conveying, fixed length codes are
preferred.
Morse Code

 Characters represented by patterns of dots and dashes.

 More frequently used letters use short code symbols.
 Short pauses are used to separate the letters.
 Represent “Hello” using Morse Code:
 H ....
 E .
 L .-..
 L .-..
 O ---
 Hello .... . .-.. .-.. ---
 Huffman Coding
The Huffman coding procedure finds the optimum, uniquely decodable, variable
length code associated with a set of events, given their probabilities of occurrence.
Start
Root Branches
 Creates a Binary Code
Tree 0 1
A
 Nodes connected by Node
0 1
branches with leaves B
 Top node – root
0 1
 Two branches from
C D
each node
Leaves
Huffman Coding
A 0
B 10
Start
C 110
Root Branches
D 111
0 1
Given the adjacent Huffman A

Node
code tree, decode the 0 1
following sequence: B
11010001110 0 1
110 10 0 0 111 0 C D
C B A A D A

Leaves
 Huffman Code Construction
 First list all events in descending order of probability.

.3 .3 .13 .12 .1 .05

Event A Event B Event C Event D Event E Event F

 Pair the two events with lowest probabilities and add their
probabilities.
0.15

.3 .3 .13 .12 .1 .05

Event A Event B Event C Event D Event E Event F
 Huffman Code Construction
 Repeat for the pair with the next lowest
probabilities.

0.25 0.15

.3 .3 .13 .12 .1 .05

Event A Event B Event C Event D Event E Event F
 Huffman Code Construction
 Repeat for the pair with the next lowest
probabilities.

0.4

0.25 0.15

.3 .3 .13 .12 .1 .05

Event A Event B Event C Event D Event E Event F
 Huffman Code Construction
 Repeat for the pair with the next lowest
probabilities.

0.6 0.4

0.25 0.15

.3 .3 .13 .12 .1 .05

Event A Event B Event C Event D Event E Event F
 Huffman Code Construction
 Repeat for the last pair and add 0s to the left branches and 1s to
the right branches.

0 1
0.6 0.4
0 1
0.25 0.15
0 1
0 1 0 1

.3 .3 .13 .12 .1 .05

Event A Event B Event C Event D Event E Event F

00 01 100 101 110 111

 Exercise
 Given the code we just constructed:
 Event A: 00 Event B: 01
 Event C: 100 Event D: 101
 Event E: 110 Event F: 111

 How can you decode the string: 0000111010110001000000111?

 Starting from the leftmost bit, find the shortest bit pattern that matches
one of the codes in the list. The first bit is 0, but we don’t have an
event represented by 0. We do have one represented by 00, which is
event A. Continue applying this procedure:
00 00 111 01 01 100 01 00 00 00 111
A A F B B C B A A A F
Universal Coding
 Huffman has its limits
 You must know a priori the probability of the characters or symbols
you are encoding.
 What if a document is “one of a kind?”
 Universal Coding schemes do not require a knowledge of the statistics
of the events to be coded.
 Universal Coding is based on the realization that any stream of
data consists of some repetition.
 Lempel-Ziv coding is one form of Universal Coding presented in the
text.
 Compression results from reusing frequently occurring strings.
 Works better for long data streams. Inefficient for short strings.
 Used by WinZip to compress information.
Lempel-Ziv Coding

 The basis for Lempel-Ziv coding is the idea that

we can achieve compression of a string by
always coding a series of zeroes and ones as
some previous string (prefix string) plus one new
bit. Compression results from reusing
frequently occuring strings

 We will not go through Lempel-Ziv coding in

detail..