In the broadest sense, compression is the process of reducing the size or volume of a series of data. Compression is utilized across a wide array of disciplines, such as file storage and transfer, image and video processing, and even mathematical theory.
There are two main types of compression: Lossless and Lossy Compression. Lossless compression allows for the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data. This is the basic type of compression in which no data is lost in the process. Lossy compression, on the other hand, only allows an approximation of the original data to be reconstructed and involves a certain degree of loss of information.
Compression is crucial in managing large amounts of data, reducing the consumption of expensive resources, such as hard disk space and transmission bandwidth. Without compression, our current usage of digital media and the internet might not be possible.