What is Google WebP Image Format & How does it Work?

Web giant Google is all set in mood to capture the web traffic as Google unveiled its own image format WebP (pronounced as Weppy) which is all set to replace JPEG format, this comes after Google already launched its own video codec in VP8 recently, its own web transfer SPDY protocol and also programming language Go with many other web services and also an operating system.

Google claims that WebP graphical format compression technique can reduce the file size image by a whopping 40% compared to JPEG file format. With successful adoption of WebP, you can expect a faster user experience on web, helps in reduction of band width and also hosting costs. So, in all you can expect improvement in web!

What actually is WebP?

WebP is a method wherein a lossy compression can be used on photo images. The degree of compression is customizable according the user needs t so that user can choose between trade-off and file size for required image quality. WebP file contains VP8 image version data, and also a  container based on RIFF. Webmasters, web developers and browser developers can use the WebP format to create smaller, better looking images which will help make the web faster.

How WebP works?

WebP makes use of  predictive coding technique to encode photo  images, the same methodology used by VP8 video codec for compressing some important  frames in videos. Predictive coding uses the values in neighboring blocks of pixels for predicting the values in a block, and then encodes only the difference (residual) between the actual values and the prediction. The residuals typically contain many zero values, which can then be compressed in a much more effective manner. The residuals are then transformed, quantized and entropy-coded as usual. WebP also uses variable block sizes.

WebP is bit stream is compatible with VP8 and uses 14 bits for width and height. The maximum file size for WebP is 16383×16383 pixels.

Google said that at first stage will release a tool wherein you will be able to convert all your JPEG images into WebP format and in a long run it will also provide a built in support into its internet browser, Google Chrome.

Downloading and using WebP is simple, just follow the link, which will give provide a complete guide in getting the conversion tools. Currently, WebP supports Linux x 86 (64 bit) platform but soon it will be also available for Windows platform as well.