Compression of binary images based on covering

The paper describes a new technique to compress binary images based on an image covering algorithm. The idea is that binary images can be always covered by rectangles, univocally described by a vertex and two adjacent edges (L-shape). Some optimisations are necessary to consider degenerate configurations. The method has been tested on several images representing drawings and typed texts. The comparison with existing image file compression techniques shows a good performance of our approach. Further optimisations are under development.