ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE JPEG

THIS IS MAINLY TAKEN FROM ANOTHER POST. Lenna Soderberg was the centerfold model of the November 1972 issue of Playboy Magazine. She had a beautiful figure, an amazing ass, and eyes that gazed deep into your loins. She also, inadvertently, played a leading role in advancing the field of image processing. The USC Signal and Image Processing Institute In the summer of 1973, Alexander Sawchuck, a professor at the USC Signal and Image Processing Institute, was laying the groundwork for research that would end up being the foundation of the JPEG and MPEG image standards. He and his assistants had a paper they intended to present at an upcoming research conference, and needed a good image to use to demonstrate how good their compression algorithm was. While many existing “stock” images existed that were common in the nascent image processing industry of the time, Alexander and his colleagues wanted to use something new — something different. The image had to have a human face and it had to be glossy so that it could demonstrate large dynamic range. As they contemplated what image to use, someone happened to walk into the lab holding the most recent issue of Playboy. Inspired, Alexander and his colleagues looked through it, and thought the centerfold image of Lenna would be a perfect choice. The photo scanning equipment in the lab at the time had a maximum resolution of 512x512, and could only scan 100 pixels per inch, and so the engineers ended up picking the following crop of the image to be used in the paper: The paper they presented ended up being absolutely canonical in the industry, and as a result countless other engineers and researchers wanted a copy of the Lenna image, so that they could compare their work on image processing with that of USC. “Visitors asked us for copies, and we gave it to them so they could compare their image processing and compression algorithms with ours on the same test image.” — Alexander Sawchuck By 1991, Lenna was literally everywhere in the image processing world. If you looked at any journal, book, or conference paper related to image processing, you would likely see the above picture of Lenna multiple times (in various stages of compression). One example of Lenna (sometimes spelled “Lena”) in a journal Things reached a fever pitch in July 1991 when the journal Optical Engineering put the photo on its cover. This caused the use of Lenna to come to Playboy’s attention, and understandably they were initially very unhappy — all these engineers had violated their copyright! Luckily, the editor of Optical Engineering called Playboy and was able to get them to say they were okay with the use of Lenna, so long as it was only for research and educational purposes. As a result, the image has continued to be used, even to this day. If you look at any modern image processing research, there is a good chance it includes at least one picture of Lenna. Lenna with various modifications Lenna and a monkey? Lenna and some graphs What journal has embraced the Lenna craze the most? The IEEE Transactions on Image Processing journal. What about the actual girl? Lenna Soderberg has actually become somewhat of a celebrity in the image processing world as a result of all of this. While she moved back to Sweden, got married, and raised some children after her Playboy shoot, she found out about her presence in all of these image journals during an interview in 1988. She was quite pleasantly amused, and since that time has actually been invited to a number of international image processing conferences. She was a guest at the 50th annual conference for the Society for Imaging and Technology in 1997, and was also the guest of honor at the 2015 IEEE (probably the most respected electrical engineering society in the world) International Conference of Image Processing, where she delivered a speech and helped chair the best paper award ceremony. “The use of her photo is clearly one of the most important events in the history of electronic imaging.” — Jeff Siedeman, Chair of the Society for Imaging and Technology In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion regarding whether it is sexist to have the primary image example used in the field of image processing to be what was originally a nude woman. To draw attention to this issue, a 2012 paper on image processing used an image of Fabio (see page 6). Lenna today Whatever your take, there is no doubt that Lena was a foundation for modern image processing. Her image turned out to be perfect for visualizing the effects of image compression — its detail, flat regions, shading, texture, and gloss all played a role. Plus, the original image was pretty good too :) Photography Tech Davis Treybig https://medium.com/five-guys-facts/lenna-e802b18d9ddc

THERE IS NO SPOON

 I JUST WANT TO TALK FOR ONE OR TWO MINUTES ABOUT THE INEFFABLE BEAUTY OF KENNA JAMES.

WE ALL REALIZE SHE IS AN ADULT FILM ACTRESS, AND HAS A 99% LIKELIHOOD OF PREFERRING WOMEN TO MEN IN HER PRIVATE LIFE, WHO KNOWS REALLY.

BUT YOU HAVE TO ADMIRE A TALL, BLONDE, BEAUTIFULLY SHAPED WOMAN SUCH AS HER.  SHE HAS A BEAUTIFUL SMILE AND MAINTAINS A TASTEFUL INSTAGRAM.  SHE'S EVEN A REPUBLICAN WHO PRESUMABLY SAVES ALL HER MONEY FOR RETIREMENT.  

ON THE FLIP SIDE, SHE DOES THINGS ON FILM THAT ARE, WELL, YOU KNOW, REALLY PROVOCATIVE, SEXY AND STIMULATING.  MOST INTERESTINGLY, SHE STARES RIGHT AT THE CAMERA RIGHT AS SHE IS DOING THE NASTIEST THINGS IMAGINABLE WITH THAT WONDERFUL SMILE.  

THIS, FOLKS, IS AMERICA 2024.  WE HAVE A FORMER PRESIDENT WHO HAS F_____D MULTIPLE PLAYBOY PLAYMATES AND PORNSTARS, WHO WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT AGAIN, AND WE HAVE WHOLESOME BEAUTIES WHO DO ADULT FILM WORK.  

"ALISON, YOU KNOW THIS WORLD IS KILLING ME...."

--ELVIS COSTELLO