A self-rendering digital image encoding

12/27/2011

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by   Daniel L. Ruderman, et al.

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Without careful long-term preservation digital data may be lost to a number of factors, including physical media decay, lack of suitable decoding equipment, and the absence of software. When raw data can be read but lack suitable annotations as to provenance, the ability to interpret them is more straightforward if they can be assessed through simple visual techniques. In this regard digital images are a special case since their data have a natural representation on two-dimensional media surfaces. This paper presents a novel binary image pixel encoding that produces an approximate analog rendering of encoded images when the image bits are arranged spatially in an appropriate manner. This simultaneous digital and analog representation acts to inseparably annotate bits as image data, which may contribute to the longevity of so-encoded images.