Set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT)[1] is animagecompression algorithm that exploits the inherent similarities across the subbands in awavelet decomposition ofan image. The algorithm was developed by Brazilian engineer Amir Said with William A. Pearlman in 1996.[1]
The algorithmcodes the most importantwavelet transformcoefficients first, and transmits the bits so that an increasingly refined copy of the original image can be obtained progressively.