DCTlab: educational software for still image compression and its application in a digital television course

Current standards for the compression of still and moving images use Discre te Cosine Transform (DCT) to remove spatial redundancy in images. Students specialising in image and video system engineering need to know why DCT is important in their field of interest and to understand the influence of DCT -based image compression on picture quality. Therefore, we have developed e ducational software, called DCTlab, that helps students to analyse DCT appl ication in still image compression systems. This paper describes software c haracteristics, its application in a digital television course and learning outcomes.