Graphics and the Web

JPEG

Soon most browsers will support inline JPEG images, which are best for scanned photographs

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)

Now that Unisys/CompuServe are requiring developers to license GIF, it is becoming a less attractive proposition for loss-less compression.

Portable Network Graphics (PNG)

This is a new non-proprietary proposal that uses the public domain LZ77 compression algorithm (gzip) and goes beyond GIF with features like:

• lossless truecolor
• gamma correction values
• hypertext links (no more image map files!)
• better interlacing techniques

Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML)

VRML 1.0 is largely derived from SGI's OpenInventor format.