In data compression, vector quantization is a quantization technique often used in lossy data compression in which the basic idea is to code or replace with a key, values from a multidimensional vector space into values from a discrete subspace of lower dimension. The lower-space vector requires less storage space and the data is thus compressed. The transformation into the subspace is usually achieved through projection, or by using a codebook. In some cases, a codebook implementation can be also used to entropy code the discrete value in the same step by generating a prefix coded variable-length encoded value as its output.

Twin vector quantization (VQF) is part of the MPEG-4 standard dealing with time domain weighted interleaved vector quantization.

See also

• speech coding
• Ogg Vorbis
• Voronoi diagram
• rate-distortion function

Part of this article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing and is used with permission under the GFDL.

External links

• http://www.data-compression.com/vq.html