Doc: IT/99-0110
Date: March 1, 1999
Project: Administrative
Ref. Doc:
Reply to: Monica Vago
Phone: 202-626-5739
email: mvago@itic.org
To: NCITS Members
Subject: AT&T Fast Track Proposal - NCITS L3.2 Officer's Prima Facie Objections and AT&T Response
AT&T Response to Objections raised by L3.2 Officers regarding the proposal for an "Image Compression Format for Digital Documents" (IT/98-0562)
AT&T RESPONSE TO OBJECTIONS RAISED BY NCITS/L3.2 OFFICERS
(AT&T responses are shown in bold italics.)
As chair and vice chair of NCITS/L3.2 (the relevant working group in this matter) we wish to raise a prima facie objection to the fast track candidacy of ATT's Image Compression Format for Digital Documents (ICFDD) technology. While this excellent technology is within the scope of the work done within NCITS, it competes directly with standards in currently in development in NCITS/L3.2 as the US National Body to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG1 (the JPEG/JBIG committee).
The submission does not compete directly with standards in development in NCITS/L3.2 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 1. While there are aspects of the proposal that include similar functionality to parts of standards under development, the proposal is not duplicating the functionality of those standards. The proposal offers an immediate standard solution for compression of scanned document images for use on the World Wide Web. It is possible that this specific area may be addressed by a profile of the NCITS and ISO standards in question when they are adopted in the future. However, it is unlikely that a resulting profile will be as efficient or usable as the standard defined by the proposal and within the area targeted by the proposal.
The combination of the nascent JBIG-2 standard with the emerging JPEG 2000 standard and the existing MRC standard should provide a superior solution to the ICFDD. Many companies have worked very hard to bring these standards through the conventional ISO, ITU, and NCITS processes. It is only right that NCITS endorse only the one standardization effort.
In areas such as file formats and media, a number of solutions have been standardized to address specific needs. This proposal is targeted for the specific area of scanned documents for use on the web. AT&T does not believe that a certain limited set of standards needs to accommodate all applications as evidenced by the variety of existing file format and media standards.
We invited ATT to join the efforts now underway. While these efforts are currently not that far from the market, ATT's insight and technology would be welcome. We are convinced that a cooperative standardization effort will yield a superior standard in a similar time frame to the fast track proposal.
The fast track proposal submission is being made now, and could become an ANSI/NCITS standard in 1999. According to the JTC 1/SC 29 project schedule, the target date for the JPEG 2000 IS is in 2001.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
Bernie Brower, Chair, NCITS/L3.2
Imaging Scientist
Commercial and Government Systems Division
Eastman Kodak Company
1447 St. Paul Street
Rochester, NY 14653
Martin Boliek, Vice chair, NCITS/L3.2
Leader, Color Image Processing
Ricoh California Research Center
Ricoh Silicon Valley, Inc.
2882 Sand Hill Road, Suite 115
Menlo Park, CA 94025