An optimized implementation of the JPEG-LS standard for loss less and
near loss less image compression. JPEG-LS is a low-complexity standard that
matches JPEG 2000 compression ratios. In terms of speed, CharLS outperforms
open source and commercial JPEG LS implementations.

JPEG-LS (ISO-14495-1/ITU-T.87) is a standard derived from the Hewlett Packard
LOCO algorithm. JPEG LS has low complexity (meaning fast compression) and high
compression ratios, similar to JPEG 2000. JPEG-LS is more similar to the old
loss less JPEG than to JPEG 2000, but interestingly the two different
techniques result in vastly different performance characteristics.