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Use of lossy compression for science imagery is contentious. Because it's hard to characterize how the compression will affect as-yet-unseen science targets, i
by mturmon 12y ago
Use of lossy compression for science imagery is contentious. Because it's hard to characterize how the compression will affect as-yet-unseen science targets, it's hard to get scientists to accept lossy compression.
You can sometimes get acceptance of prioritized downlink -- let automation decide what is most interesting, and downlink that first. Variations on that idea have been used for Mars rovers.
- simonh 12y agoI once visited a crackpot aliens-on-the-moon conspiracy website. They were showing zoomed-in images of lunar craters purporting to show regular, artificial-looking features indicating alien activity. Of course in context I'm sure you can guess what was going on. The images were heavily compressed jpegs and I soon realised the 'regular features' were compression artifacts. Still, it goes to show why some scientists don't like lossy compression. When you're looking at fine detail it's hard to be sure whether what you're seeing is 'real' or not.