[vardump]

> FLIF is based on MANIAC compression. MANIAC (Meta-Adaptive Near-zero Integer Arithmetic Coding) is an algorithm for entropy coding developed by Jon Sneyers and Pieter Wuille. It is a variant of CABAC (context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding), where instead of using a multi-dimensional array of quantized local image information, the contexts are nodes of decision trees which are dynamically learned at encode time.

I wonder if tANS [0] could be used instead of arithmetic coding for (presumably) higher performance. Although I guess the authors must be aware of ANS. Would be interesting to hear why it wasn't used instead.

[0]: Tabled asymmetric numeral systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_numeral_systems#tAN...

[eln1]

Jon Sneyers is currently working on JPEG XL, which uses ANS: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of...

[jonsneyers]

Modular mode JPEG XL has MAANS (meta-adaptive ANS). It's indeed faster to decode than MANIAC, though a bit trickier to encode.