Paper Explanation: Ballé2017 "End-to-end optimized Image Compression"

This article introduces a foundational paper on image compression using deep learning, Ballé et al.'s "End-to-end Optimized Image Compression" from ICLR 2017. It highlights the importance of image compression in modern society and explains the core concept: using deep learning to achieve efficient data compression. The article briefly outlines the general process of lossy image compression, mentioning pre-processing, data transformation (like discrete cosine or wavelet transforms), and discretization, particularly quantization. The focus is on the application of deep learning to optimize this process.