This page demonstrates how a JPEG 2000 image file can be transmitted progressively by resolution. This feature is very useful for transmitting images over bandwidth constrained networks and for thumbnail browsing of images.

The image sequence shown above illustrates how a file can be progressively decompressed at higher and higher resolutions. The information in the text box on the right indicates the amount of data needed to decode the image at the resolution size shown, as well as the effective compression ratio. Clicking on any of the resolution buttons will take you back to that resolution.

For example, clicking on the 1/16 resolution button will take you to the smallest size image that can be decoded from this image file. To decode at this resolution, only 600 bytes of data are required. The next higher resolution can be decoded by transmitting an additional 600 Bytes of the image file. Only the additional data needs to be decoded and combined with the lower resolution image to create the 1/8th resolution image. Decoding to 1/4 resolution results in a 90 x 52 thumbnail image using only 2.7 Kbytes of the image file.