Scientists are storing light we cannot see in formats meant for human eyes

image via Ars Technica

March 28, 2025, 10:11 PM

• •A new compression format called Spectral JPEG XL might finally solve this growing problem in scientific visualization and computer graphics.
• •Spectral JPEG XL utilizes a technique used with human-visible images, a math trick called a discrete cosine transform (DCT), to make these massive files smaller.
• •The results reported by the researchers seem impressive—with their technique, spectral image files shrink by 10 to 60 times compared to standard OpenEXR lossless compression, bringing them down to sizes comparable to regular high-quality photos.

Spectral JPEG XL is a new compression format that can reduce the file sizes of spectral images by 10 to 60 times. This makes it more practical to work with these images, which are used in fields such as scientific visualization and automotive design.

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