Compression of color-mapped images

Multispectral data is often displayed and stored as a color-mapped or pseudo-color image. Pseudo-color is also used to enhance features in a single-band image. The use of pseudo-color tends to rearrange the structure in the image in such a way as to prevent efficient compression. This structure can be restored by sorting the color maps. Restoration of the structure increases the efficiency of lossless compression and permits the use of lossy compression algorithms. The latter benefit is especially useful for many progressive transmission algorithms.>